Anomaly: Book Two: In At the Death
by VolcanicPizza
Summary: It has been two years since Frisk left the Underground. Now, her life is functioning almost normally. She has a family (albeit a monster one) and is even happy. But nothing lasts forever in this world, and as a lost friend seems to come back and a twisted ideology rises to power one person will make the ultimate sacrifice to attempt to end the madness. (Complete)
1. It's Raining Somewhere Else

**A/N: Here it is, the sequel to "Beyond Forgiveness!" If you haven't read Beyond Forgiveness yet and just stumbled across this, I advise you go back and read it, because without it you won't understand a lot of things.**

 **For the context of this story, I'm placing Mount Ebott in the Sierra Nevadas. This wasn't just a random decision: I checked the image at the end of the game and cross-referenced it and decided it could fit in the Sierra Nevada range.**

 **And finally, just for reference, in the world of Undertale, the monsters were freed on October 20th, 2014. Don't go into the whole "201X" debate with me, I'm just going to assume that it's a monster dating system that works differently from ours. There will be some differences from our world but they won't be too major, just enough to propel the story along its desired course. Don't overthink it.**

 **Now that we're done this super long author's note, let's continue!**

Asriel Dreemurr, Prince of Monsters, was bored. A traditional state he found himself in nowadays, mostly when he was sitting on the leathery, scratchy bus seats.

 _Two years,_ he thought.

 _Two years since monsters were freed from below the surface._

The humans' response to the monsters hadn't been tame. After the war between humans and monsters, humans had done everything they could to erase the fact of the existence of monsters from their memory, to the extent that only a few powerful heads of government knew that an entire race was trapped underground.

 _One year since the humans of the outside world found out about us._

After the monsters left the underground, they were immediately contained by the government of the country controlling the area: the United States of America. All of the monsters were placed in a ramshackle town of tents and huts inside a chain-link fence and kept there, in the hopes that they could be contained and sealed back underground.

But the information that monsters existed had been leaked, along with that of their pacifistic tendencies and the knowledge that the CORE could power a large portion of the area around Mount Ebott, and humans began protesting in favor of the monsters.

 _One year and four months since we were freed from the camp._

Faced by enormous public opposition, the government had no choice but to release the monsters. They had fanned out and settled most of North America, with sparser settlement in Eurasia and South America. Asriel's family, however, had chosen to settle in the immediate area, in a small town called Alta Nevada.

Asriel snapped out of his thoughts and looked up as he heard footsteps, and then Frisk sat down next to him. With a sigh, she set her backpack down at her feet.

"That good, huh?" Asriel asked.

Frisk made a noncommittal grunt and stared at her feet. After a moment, she looked back up and asked, "What deep thoughts were you thinking?"

"Huh?"

"I could tell from the way you were glaring at the back of the seat in front of you that you were thinking about something." Frisk explained.

"Ah... it's just the fact that we wasted almost a year and a half of our lives in that stupid camp." Asriel scratched his head and winced as he almost nicked himself on the beginnings of horns sprouting there.

"And how the humans kept trying to take me away." Now it was Frisk's turn to stare at the back of the seat in front of them. Her biological parents hadn't even shown up to claim her, but the humans outside in general kept trying to take her out and put her with human foster parents. The only reason they hadn't was because Frisk had threatened to leak the information that monsters existed and were trapped in the "construction site" right by Mount Ebott if they did.

They were both snapped out of their dark thoughts by a voice from the seat behind them: "Hey, guys."

Frisk swung around to see a fellow human peering over the back of their seat: messy brown hair, gray-blue eyes, a little taller than she was but shorter than Asriel. "Oh. Hi, Caleb."

"How'd you get back there?" Asriel frowned. "I would've seen you coming up the aisle."

"Well, would you believe me if I told you I could teleport?" Caleb grinned. At the looks they gave them, he continued, "No? Fine. I crawled under the seats on the other side and rolled across the aisle behind you."

"All just to make us think you can teleport?" Asriel raised an eyebrow.

"I've done stupider for less." Caleb shrugged. "When you're me, you can afford to do that kind of thing." His gaze drifted downwards to the necklace he wore, a shark tooth on a leather cord, then snapped back up. "Anyway, can I hang out at you guys' place until dinner?"

"This is becoming a regular occurrence... is there any particular reason?" Frisk teased.

Caleb sucked in a breath between his teeth. "You guys know how my mom got after my dad died. Help a pal out and don't ask questions, okay?"

"Very well. Just because you're our friend."

"Thanks." Caleb shrank back down into his seat and pulled out a notebook.

"What're you working on?" asked Asriel.

"Eh, the usual." Scratching down a few notes, Caleb added, "I'm trying to figure out what would've happen if Germany managed to win the Battle of Jutland."

"What war was that?"

"First World War." Frowning, Caleb added, "First thing is to figure out how they could've won, though. I mean, I guess that they could've hit the Brits with everything they had and beat it before Jellicoe arrived, but that would've been more of a draw..." His voice trailed off. "I'm boring you, aren't I?"

"Well..." Frisk started.

"Yes." Asriel was more blunt than his adopted sister.

"See, that's why you guys are my friends. You don't lie just to spare my feelings." Caleb went back to writing down notes.

The bus shifted into motion and pulled away from the school.

Frisk and Asriel were both silent as they watched the road and houses swarm by the window. For the most part, they had settled into life in Alta Nevada fairly well, but after the first few months the novelty of living with monsters had worn off for Frisk. As for Asriel, the novelty of the surface had worn off pretty quick after the first few weeks in what Frisk had termed "the concentration camp."

Frisk and Asriel's stop was pretty early on in the bus route, and before they knew it the doors hissed open. Asriel poked Caleb. "Hey! You're getting off here, too, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, I wasn't really paying attention." Caleb gathered his supplies into his backpack, took a final bite of out the granola bar he was holding _(when did he pull that out_ _?)_ before stuffing it in his pocket and followed them off the bus.

The house Toriel had procured was relatively large given the size of the town. The cheery blue siding usually made Frisk smile, but today her straight face remained fixed as she headed through the door.

She and Asriel dumped their backpacks at the front door. Caleb stood in front of the door for about a minute (they could both tell from the expression on his face that he was thinking about something probably more than a hundred years before the modern day) before Frisk poked him with an elbow, and he started before shrugging his backpack off and following them.

As Frisk opened the door into the next room, she realized from the smell in the air that Toriel had been baking something. Asriel stopped right in his tracks, tilted his head up, and inhaled. Caleb, for his part, dug in his pocket, pulled out that granola bar, and finished it off in one bite. "What?" he asked at Frisk and Asriel's stares.

"Surprise, my children!" Toriel smiled as they walked into the kitchen. "I baked a pie for your after-school snack! Oh, hello, Caleb." she added as he slouched into the room. "Would you like some pie, too?"

Several pie slices later, Frisk and Asriel were sitting at the kitchen table working on their homework. Caleb wasn't really focusing on his homework and was instead trying to see how long he could balance his notebook on one side before it fell on the table with a muffled _splat._ After about ten times, Frisk's head snapped up, and her hand darted across the table, grabbed the notebook, and pinned it on the table. "No. More." she said in a dangerous voice.

"Oh, sorry." Caleb stuffed the notebook in his backpack. "I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing."

"That's your excuse every time you do something like that!" Asriel pointed out.

"I can't help it if I'm the absent-minded professor type." Caleb sniffed.

"You're certainly absent-something alright." Asriel muttered, just loud enough for Caleb to hear.

* * *

After they were finished their homework, Caleb pulled out his cell phone.

"What're you looking at?" asked Asriel.

"Eh, just boring history stuff you wouldn't be interested in." replied Caleb.

"I'm not surprised." Asriel pulled out his own phone.

"What are you looking at?" Frisk asked.

"Stuff in the modern day that's actually relevant, unlike stuff that happened a hundred years ago." Asriel looked up at Caleb.

"Hey! First off, the Anglo-Persian was 159 years ago, and second, it's actually very important in the context of British naval-"

"I thought you were focusing on World War One." Frisk interrupted, not wanting him to go into a three-hour long discussion about history.

"I still am." Caleb insisted. "I'm trying to figure out if, had it lasted a little longer, British naval power could have been affected enough to cost Britain the first world war."

Suddenly, Caleb's phone started to ring. Asriel and Frisk only heard the first few melancholy bars of the music he used as his ringtone before he picked up and held the phone to his ear. "Hello?" he asked, and winced immediately. "Sorry, Mom. I'll be home as soon as possible." He hung up. "That was my mom. Something went wrong with the TV or something, and she wants me to fix it." He shrugged. "Oh, well. So much for escaping my problems at home. See you guys tomorrow." He left the kitchen, and they could hear him pick up his backpack and slam the front door shut behind him.

* * *

It was really a shame Caleb couldn't stay for dinner, seeing as Toriel had made Frisk and Asriel's favorite food tonight. Then again, hadn't Caleb once said he couldn't stand snails?

"Great snail pie, Mom." Asriel muttered in between frantic bites.

"Eat more slowly, my child." Toriel admonished gently.

Frisk had been obeying her adopted mother's instructions before she even gave them, the sedate pace being caused by her mind being elsewhere. Namely, on Papyrus. She wondered how he was faring. He hadn't been in much of a good mood since-

The house phone rang, and everyone froze for a second before Toriel picked it up. "Hello?"

Frisk couldn't hear what the person on the other end was saying, but it sounded frantic. Toriel lowered the phone from her ear. "Papyrus is missing from his apartment, and nobody can find him. Do you two have any idea where he might be?"

"But he literally doesn't do anything or go anywhere." Asriel's brow crinkled with puzzlement. "All he does is make spaghetti. Where could he-"

Frisk snapped her fingers. "I know where he is." She turned to Toriel. "We'll be back in a few moments."

As the two siblings got up from their chairs and hurried out the door, Asriel asked again, "Where is he?"

Frisk only needed to say one word: "Sans."

* * *

Frisk could see Papyrus kneeling there before anything else. The moonlight reflected off of his skull.

"I MISS YOU, BROTHER. EVERYTHING IS SO DULL AND BLEAK WITHOUT YOU..."

Papyrus cleared his throat and dug around in a pocket. "ANYWAY, I BROUGHT YOU SOME KETCHUP. THE SAME KIND AS ALWAYS, BUT THIS IS THE LAST BOTTLE GRILLBY HAD. SO I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE IF I HAVE TO BRING HUMAN KETCHUP NEXT TIME."

They heard the _clink_ as he set it down on hard stone, and a stifled sob.

"WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GO, SANS?" Papyrus's voice was muffled. "WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE STAYED HERE WITH US?"

"Papyrus!" Frisk called out, and the skeleton jerked upright. "Papyrus, it's time to go home."

Papyrus nodded, as if he hadn't thought of that, and turned around. "Y...YOU'RE RIGHT, FRISK."

And the three of them walked away, leaving behind the simple headstone marked "Sans," with the one full bottle of ketchup beside it... and the many empty ones scattered around.

* * *

The best anybody could figure out was that Sans had been drinking ketchup while he crossed the road and hadn't been paying attention. That much they could infer from the trail of dust with tire marks in it and the half-crushed bottle of ketchup next to it.

After Sans's death, Papyrus had grown more isolated and withdrawn, staying inside the apartment they had shared and making spaghetti, every so often coming down to visit Sans's grave. It was a sharp departure from the fun-loving innocent personality he had had before, to say the least.

 _Too many of us have died,_ Frisk thought. _But at least I still have Asriel and Mom_.

After they delivered Papyrus to his apartment and made sure that he wouldn't burn the apartment block down with his attempts at making spaghetti, Frisk and Asriel headed home. Seeing Papyrus in that state had depressed both of them so much that they went to bed early.

 _I wish I didn't have to give up my power to reset to save Asriel,_ Frisk thought as she pulled the covers more tightly around herself. _But there's no going back, is there? At least things can only go uphill from here._


	2. Another Medium

**A/N: Screw it, I'm writing two chapters in one day because I can.**

"So I've been thinking," Caleb said as he, Frisk, and Asriel walked into Grillby's, "instead of getting a watch, I should just get a sharpie and write 'You're Late' on my wrist. It would solve my problem of feeling like an idiot whenever I look at my wrist and remember that I don't have a watch, and it'd be right about 90 percent of the time."

"Or you could just get a watch," Frisk pointed out, hopping up on one of the barstools.

"True," agreed Asriel, sitting next to her.

"Granted, but where's the fun in that? Plus, a watch isn't as good a conversation starter as having 'You're Late' written on your wrist." Caleb drummed his fingers on the bartop. "What do you guys want?"

Frisk considered replying, "The souls of the innocent" to mess with him, but instead told him, "I think I'll have some fries."

"Same here." Asriel said.

"Sounds pretty good." Caleb raised his voice. "Hey, Grillby, three baskets of fries, please."

Grillby nodded and headed back into the kitchen.

Frisk scratched her head. Picking up the bottle of ketchup, she was about to pull the top off and drink it before she realized what she was doing and set it back down. _It's been almost two years since Sans's soul and mine parted ways, and some of his habits have still stuck._ she thought wryly.

Asriel turned to Caleb. "What was it that your mom wanted yesterday?" he asked.

"TV 'broke,' but what actually happened was that she forgot to pay the bill." Caleb explained. "At least she didn't forget to pay the Wi-Fi bill."

Grillby's was almost exactly the same as it had been underground. The only difference was that the restaurant was about twice the size to accommodate for a larger customer base. Frisk was just glad that Grillby had set up shop in Alta Nevada instead of the city, since this tended to be the perpetual hangout for her, Asriel, and Caleb.

"Ah, here it comes." Caleb rubbed his hands together as Grillby approached with their orders.

Caleb dove into his fries immediately and attacked them like he hadn't eaten for weeks. Averting her eyes from the French-fry carnage, Frisk ate at a more sedate pace. Asriel barely even ate, period, seeming more inclined to stare at the plastic basket with the fries in it.

Caleb was finished pretty quickly, and nudged Asriel. "You gonna eat those fries?" he asked.

"Yes," Asriel replied, "I'm just taking my time and not being a pig like you."

"I take offense at that statement!" scoffed Caleb. "You know perfectly well I skipped lunch today because I forgot to do my math homework!"

"'Forgot?'" Asriel rolled his eyes. "As I recall, you did your history homework in about twelve seconds and spent the rest of the time balancing your notebook on its side until Frisk stopped you. Besides, fries aren't very filling."

"I know, that's why I want yours." Caleb replied.

Frisk sighed and blocked them out as she lifted the bottle of ketchup to her mouth. She didn't even realize what she was doing until she heard Caleb chanting, "Chug it! Chug it!" and quickly put it down.

"Frisk, you just drank half a bottle of ketchup in one sitting." Asriel eyed her with something between confusion and embarrassment. "Caleb, can I switch seats with you?"

"As long as you don't take your fries with you."

* * *

Walking out of Grillby's half an hour later, Frisk reached up and slid the hood of her hoodie on. Although the weather in Alta Nevada wasn't necessarily cold, she often felt more secure with the hood on.

Caleb, in contrast, had the zipper on his red hoodie open and the hood down. His hands were in the pockets of said hoodie, although that was probably more to keep his cell phone from falling out. Asriel didn't have his hood up either, although that was probably so his small horns didn't poke holes in it.

Alta Nevada was about evenly divided in terms of monster and human population. Most of the monsters living here had settled on the southern side of the town, while the human population was centered in the northwest of the town. Caleb's house and Grillby's were both on what was considered the dividing line between these districts. Despite the clear separation, humans here mostly fell into two categories: those who were accepting of monsters' presence, and those who thought them abominations and sought to put them down whenever they could. Luckily for monsters, the latter kind was a minority.

Despite this, it was a human of the latter kind that walked past the three of them. "Accidentally" smashing his elbow into Asriel's side, he muttered, "Freak," just loud enough for them to hear.

Both Frisk and Caleb started to move, but as Caleb was closer he got there first. Grabbing ahold of the human's arm, he snapped, "You mess with my friend, and you're going to have a bad time."

"Like I'm scared of some scrawny thirteen-year-old." the human scoffed.

Caleb flushed. "I'm fourteen, and I- Oh, screw that! The important part is-"

"You'll have to deal with both of us if you continue in this vein." Frisk intervened, saving Caleb from further humiliation.

The human would have scoffed at her, too, but there was something about the look in her eyes and the casual way her hands were in the pockets of her hoodie that made him think twice. Instead, he said, "You should be loyal to your own race instead of another one." He lifted the front of his jacket just high enough so they could both see the double-headed eagle insignia pinned to it and walked off.

"What was that on his shirt?" Asriel asked. "I couldn't see."

"Patriot symbol." Frisk replied.

In the political fallout resulting from the emergence of the monsters, a new party had emerged. Groups of far-right Republicans had banded together with those who opposed monsters on religious or moral grounds and formed the Patriot party. Most of their strength was in the Deep South, but you could rely on them to be just about everywhere. Thankfully, there were relatively few of them in Alta Nevada, and they tended to not venture near monsters unless deliberately looking to stir up trouble.

"Why can't those idiots-" Caleb used a different word than _idiots_ \- "just leave monsters alone?"

It would have been bad enough that the Patriots were holding furious anti-monster rallies across the country, but they just couldn't settle there. They had to go ahead and try to win the presidency. John A. Pence was one of those people who made his feelings about monsters known by giving infuriated political speeches across the country and was proposing attempted deportation of monsters into the surrounding countries. And that was one of his tamer ideas.

 _The worst part is,_ Asriel thought, _those nutcases will probably even end up carrying a few states in the elections._ There were still two more months to go until it was November 8th and election time, but the Patriots were acting like it was tomorrow what with the heavy campaigning they had been doing.

The three walked over to the park and sat down on a bench off to the side. It was quiet and secluded, with the shade from a tree branch hanging over them.

The serenity of the area filled Frisk with tranquil peace-

And then of course, Caleb ruined the moment by pulling out a candy bar and taking a large bite out of it. "What?" he asked in response to Frisk's glare.


	3. Premonition

Frisk couldn't focus. A simple glance was all that was needed to secure the knowledge that her adopted brother was in the same state.

She was in the middle of her history class, with a worksheet in front of her, but she literally couldn't focus. Her eyes kept darting up from the paper, stealing glances at the clock. She knew she was only five minutes into second period, but it felt like it had been as many hours.

She forced herself to look down at the paper, but the questions didn't make any sense. The first one looked like it was some convoluted algebra problem, and all the questions after that one were even more nonsensical.

Frisk looked back up and realized for the first time that there was nobody in the room asides from her and Asriel. Quickly turning her head, she saw that the clock was melting, numbers fusing together and the hands becoming spirals. Panicking, she looked back down at the desk and saw it melting, too.

 _And so was she._

With a muffled scream, she tried to pull her hands up from the desk, but they had already melted into its surface and were totally indistinguishable from it. She tried to turn her head, but it moved slowly, and it was already beginning to sink into her body. The last thing she saw before folds of melted skin drifted down over her face was that Asriel had been replaced by a yellow flower, and it turned its head and shrieked with laughter at her as she was blinded.

And then everything changed, warping around her, and she was yanked away from that place and into a swirling void of simple nothingness.

Everything was dark.

Darker.

Yet darker.

A voice called out. It sounded familiar, but she couldn't place where she'd heard it before.

It called out again, and this time Frisk could make out what it was saying.

Four words:

 _"I AM STILL HERE."_

* * *

"Aah!" Frisk pulled herself up in bed, sweat pouring down her face.

Asriel had been woken by her scream, and turned to her with a look of concern on his face. "Frisk, are you okay?"

"Yeah." Desperately Frisk tried to calm her pounding heart and shoved the blankets off of herself, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. "Just... a nightmare." She almost smiled, but couldn't quite. "Stupid, isn't it? I'm fourteen, for God's sake, and I'm getting scared by a random dream."

"You know, I have nightmares, too..." Asriel started.

"Well, if you do, you sure do a great job of hiding it." Frisk rubbed her hand across her forehead, and it came away moist.

"That doesn't matter, Frisk." Coming over to sit on the side of her bed, Asriel continued, "I'm always going to be here for you, okay?"

This time Frisk managed to force a weak smile. "Thank you, Asriel, for always sticking with me."

Asriel put a hand on her shoulder. "You're my sister and best friend. It's kind of a given that I will, isn't it?"

Impulsively Frisk threw her arms around him, and after a moment Asriel returned the gesture.

After a moment Asriel returned to his bed and slid under the covers again. "Good night, Frisk."

"G'night."

After a moment, Asriel's breathing deepened into snores. But sleep did not find Frisk so easily, and she lay awake for a long time finding terror in every noise in the night.

* * *

Later, at the period when the sun is not quite up yet but its light is still faintly beaming across the sky, a knock on the door sounded.

Having not been able to sleep since her nightmare, Frisk was out of bed instantly. It seemed that Asriel had been sleeping lightly, as his eyes also snapped open, but all he did was pull the covers up over his face. "What kind of maniac would be calling at this time of night?"

"Come on, Asriel, it's only-" Frisk glanced over at the clock. "-ten to six. Besides that, if somebody needs to talk to us at this time, it's probably urgent."

Asriel moaned and submerged himself under his blankets.

"I'll tickle your feet!"

"Ugh... you know my weaknesses, Frisk. Fine, I'm coming."

The knock sounded again, louder this time.

Frisk opened the door and stepped into the hallway. "Asriel, you better be behind me."

"Urf." was the only response. It sounded like it was being said from beneath a blanket.

Frisk walked past Toriel's room. It seemed that she hadn't been awoken by the knocking, or if she had, she was doing some excellent fake snoring.

 _Knock. Knock._

"Hold on." Frisk trudged to the front door and looked through the peephole, but all she could see was blue cloth, as if somebody was leaning up against the door.

The fabric shifted and vanished, and the knock sounded again.

Frisk opened the lock and turned the doorknob.

The door opened...

But nobody came.

"What?" Frisk frowned, rubbing at her eyes. "What was the point of that?"

Asriel staggered up behind her. In a bleary voice, he pointed at the ground and asked, "What's that?"

Frisk bent over. There was an envelope lying on the ground. It had written on it, simply, "dreemurrs," in a scratchy, unfamiliar hand.

Frowning, Frisk shut the door, turned the lock, and walked to the kitchen with Asriel behind her. Setting it down on the table, she pulled open the envelope and withdrew a folded sheet of lined paper from it.

"What does it say?" Asriel asked.

There were several lines written in the same handwriting as on the envelope.

 **i am still here**

 **i will come back**

 **i always will**

 **i hope you are ready**

 **my friends**

"What?" Frisk shook her head. "I don't... understand..."

"I recognize that handwriting from somewhere." Asriel scratched his head with one claw. "I don't remember where from, but I know that handwriting."

Frisk set the sheet of paper down on the table. "I don't understand." she repeated.

"Neither do I." Asriel shrugged. "Either way, it probably doesn't matter much. I can't think of anybody who would 'always come back...' unless this is..." His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. "No. It couldn't be."

"What couldn't be?" Frisk asked.

"Well... what if..." Asriel ticked off points on his fingers. "Who do we know that's too lazy to use proper capitalization or punctuation, and prefers to speak in vague generalities instead of giving us a valid explanation, and would wake us up in the morning instead of delivering this letter like a normal person, and we all think is dead?"

"You mean..." Frisk's eyes went from the paper to Asriel and back to the paper again. "You don't think _Sans_ wrote this?"


	4. Memory

**A/N: Warning: this chapter contains depressing content involving the deaths of major characters. You have been warned.**

After this revelation, Frisk remembered that it was still about an hour before their bus came. However, with the thought that Sans might be back, there was no way either of them would be able to get back to sleep, so Frisk stuffed the letter in her pocket. "So, uh... we've still got an hour to kill before the bus comes. What should we do?"

Asriel shrugged. "Quite honestly, I don't really care. I mean..." He paused as he tried to put his thoughts into words. "Somebody we thought was dead could be coming back. Anything would be fine after that."

Frisk had no comment on that, mostly because she felt the same way. "Well, we can probably kill a few minutes watching TV, I guess, if we turn the volume down low enough so it won't wake Mom."

"Sure." Asriel shrugged again. "Why not?"

Frisk picked up the remote from the kitchen table and pressed the power button. _Click._

Some cruddy cartoon came on, blaring bad music. Frisk quickly changed the channel.

"-back on the MTT channel, where everything is 100 percent Mettaton 100 percent of the time!"

"Please change the channel." Asriel intervened. "I don't want to listen to that narcissistic gearbox any more than you want to."

Actually, Frisk would have been fine watching Mettaton's channel, but instead she merely said, "Okay." _Click._

Another cruddy cartoon. "Change it." _Click._

"-anti-monster riots spanning the midwest culminated five hours ago as groups of protesters marched on the South Dakota governor's home in light of his favorable opinions on monster suffrage. While the source of these riots is unknown, it is suspected to have been organized by Patriot agitators. The president has made no remark on the marches thus far. Meanwhile in Sacramento, California, at the site of the assassination of monster king Asgore Dreemurr-"

Asriel's eyes were wet. "Turn it off, Frisk. Please."

Frisk pressed the power button on the remote, and the image of the place where an assassin's bullet had found Asgore and his dust had been scattered vanished from the screen, replaced by darkness.

"I still keep..." Asriel's voice was shaky. "He's been dead almost six months. I keep thinking that I've recovered completely, and then I'll see something like that-" he waved a hand at the TV- "and it just comes back to hit me again."

"Hey, it's-" Frisk stopped as a fresh sob wracked Asriel's body, and decided that the best thing she could do for him now was comfort him.

"And now it looks like Sans is coming back, but my dad isn't?" Asriel sobbed. "What does he have that Dad didn't? What makes him so special as to get to come back while my dad is still dead?"

Frisk realized that she didn't have an answer. _Why_ does _Sans get to come back instead of Asgore? Come to think of it, why isn't Gaster or Chara or someone else coming back instead of him?_

"Is it because he has something that Dad didn't? Or was it just random?" Asriel pulled away from Frisk abruptly and wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve. "Either way, this world sucks."

At least Frisk had a response to that. "This world has always sucked. It took me nine hundred resets until I could figure out how to save you and get this ending, and even then it wasn't without Chara's sacrifice. I don't know the answer to why the world is like this, but I do know that it's always been like this."

Asriel sniffed. "I know. And knowing that just makes everything worse."

"It has to end at some point, doesn't it? There has to be a way for things to be better..."

"I wish you hadn't had to give up your power to reset." Asriel cried out suddenly. "If you had, this would be so much easier. We really could find a way to save everyone, just like in the old days."

"Just like the old days, huh?" A wave of nostalgia overtook Frisk. "But then I'd have to re-save you, too."

"I think..." Asriel sighed suddenly and let himself slouch over, elbows on his knees. "No. Never mind."

"You think what?" Frisk pressed.

"It's nothing, okay?" Asriel glared at the television. "Just let it go."

"Let it-" Frisk stared at him. "Asriel, are you hearing what you're saying? If I'd just 'let it go,' I wouldn't have saved you!"

"I'd still be around. Just as a flower." Asriel shrugged. "I'd still probably have enough memories of being a good person to at least not be a murderous maniac. Besides, you're such a nice person you probably would've come back down to the Underground, stuck me in a flowerpot, and taken me back up with you. And Chara would still be alive, albeit still in your head. With three of us working together, we might have been able to save my dad. Is this really the best ending?"

"No telling now, is there?" Frisk shrugged. "I can't go back anymore, and I don't think I will be able to ever."

Asriel's brow knit. "I know... but I still feel like there's a way that's blatantly obvious but we're just overlooking."

"Maybe." Frisk abruptly stood up. "Right now, though, we should just focus on what we can do."

"What we can do." Asriel echoed. "And what can we do? Maybe in the Underground, we could've done something. Now? Now we're just two kids in a sea of billions of people. There weren't even a million monsters in the Underground, and there's less now!"

"We can still try, though, can't we?" Frisk asked. "I mean, you're the prince of monsters, and I'm your adopted sister. There's nothing that can stand in our way, right?"

"Frisk, normally I'd admire your idealistic attitude, but it's time to stop, okay?" Asriel scratched at the base of his horns. "There's nothing we CAN do in this world of bureaucracy and government regulations. At least in the Underground we could get things done without every one of our actions having to be checked by the government."

Frisk didn't say anything in response, mostly because what he said was true. _Maybe it is time to drop my idealistic outlook._

"Still, there's something we can try." Frisk pulled the letter back out from her pocket. "We can get Alphys to run some tests and figure out if there's any possibility that he's alive." Before Asriel could make any scathing comments, she continued, "You've been looking at it wrong, Az. If Sans is still alive, there's no reason Asgore shouldn't be, too."

Fresh vitality pumped itself into Asriel, and he jumped up from the couch. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

"Nice to see that somebody's feeling energetic." Toriel remarked, coming down the stairs. "What has you two up at such an early hour?"

Frisk whipped around, startled. "Sorry, Mom, can't tell you now, we have to go! We'll be back soon as possible!" Grabbing hold of Asriel's hand, she dragged him out the door behind her.

"Frisk!" Asriel shouted, trying desperately to catch up with her as she pelted down the street.

"What?" Frisk shouted back at him.

"Why'd you ditch Mom? Couldn't you have told-"

"I don't want to get anyone's hopes up prematurely." Frisk's eyes hardened. "Haven't we both learned that that's one of the worst things you can do to someone?"

Asriel didn't have a response to that, mainly for the same reason that Frisk didn't respond to his statement two minutes earlier.

* * *

"W-well, okay." Alphys glanced nervously down at the letter, then back up at Asriel and Frisk. "I can try to see if there have been any, um, disturbances around..." She fidgeted nervously. "L-let's just get started, okay? I... I'll explain as it goes along. The only problem is, my machinery isn't really, um, equipped to this kind of thing, so I'll have to improvise. I-It should still work out, though."

Despite Alphys's promises, she didn't say anything, at least, not to the two teenagers. As computer screens hummed and flickered results, Alphys was muttering to herself. At first she was too quiet for them to hear anything, but as she checked the final computer screen they heard her say in a louder voice, "Photon readings negative." She turned to Asriel and Frisk. "This next experiment seems very, very interesting. What do you two think?"

Both of them stared at her.

"What?"

"You sounded a bit..." Asriel turned to Frisk. "Help me out here. What's the word I'm looking for?"

"Mad-scientist-y?" Frisk suggested.

"Close enough." Asriel shrugged.

Alphys laughed nervously. "Sorry about that. Basically, I was scanning for Sans on..." She snapped her fingers. "Wait a moment, let me check this." She rushed back to the computers, and her claws clicked nervously over the keyboard as she opened a new window. Streams of gibberish ran across the screen for a moment, then became a single, pulsing 0.

"Just as I thought." Alphys nodded. "We're picking up absolutely no photons. What this means is that if Sans is still around, he's trapped in the void of nonexistence, shattered across the timelines..." She shivered suddenly, her eyes haunted. "Well, I wouldn't envy the agony he'd be in right now."

"So Sans might not even be there?" Frisk asked.

"Exactly." Alphys nodded. "We don't even know if there's a possibility that he's in the void right now. But if he's anywhere, it's there."

"And even so..." Asriel started. "What if that wasn't even Sans we saw outside? What if somebody was just playing an elaborate, complex, cruel prank on us?"

"Then I've wasted about 50 percent of the batteries on all of my computers." Alphys noted. "Have you told anybody else about this?"

Frisk shook her head. "We don't want to get everyone's hopes up, more so Papyrus... I don't think he could handle losing his brother again."

"Th-that's probably the best course of action." Alphys started. "I'll try to run some more tests and see if we can lock in a positive on whether he's still there or not. In the meantime, isn't your bus coming in five minutes?"

Frisk swore loudly and profanely. "We haven't even eaten yet! We're going to have to run to make it in time!" She jumped up from her chair, and Asriel followed her. "Bye, Alphys!" she remembered to call over her shoulder as they left.

The stress of attempting to catch the bus was such that they forgot about Sans until six hours later.


	5. Mysterious Place

**A/N: In order to clear up all confusion, past, present, and future, I will make this statement: John A. Pence (leader of the Patriot party, in case you've forgotten) is NOT meant to represent Donald Trump. He is based mostly off of Adolf Hitler, with a dash of Strom Thurmond.**

Lunchtime.

The cafeteria.

The table in the corner that folded down off the wall.

Frisk and Asriel were sitting next to each other, only picking at their food, stomachs nervous with anticipation. This was a shame since the food at school was actually good and the lunch people actually put some effort into it.

Frisk casually scanned the cafeteria with her eyes. There wasn't anybody very close, partially because almost nobody was going to sit near a monster like Asriel and partially because the two siblings had chosen this site on purpose for the isolation. They didn't need to hear the comments some kids threw around near Asriel, which had grown more nasty as the government showed no sign of forcing the monsters back underground.

"Hey, guys." Caleb plopped his lunch tray down across the table from Frisk and Asriel, interrupting the former's thoughts. "Anything new going on?"

Frisk and Asriel looked briefly at each other, then almost imperceptibly Asriel shook his head. Trusting in her brother's reasoning, Frisk replied, "No," to Caleb's question, feeling a little bad as she did so. _He is basically the only real friend we have here who isn't a monster._

"Same here," Caleb shrugged, pulling open a carton of milk and placing a straw in it. "Mom's not been feeling so well, though, so my uncle- you know, the one who works for Nintendo- is driving over from Nevada to look after her while I'm at school."

Frisk didn't know Caleb had any uncles in the first place. "Um, okay?"

Looking vaguely disappointed, Caleb opened the wrapper around his sandwich and took a bite. "Actually, I don't know why I thought you guys would be interested in that in the first place."

An awkward silence ensued.

"However, I have found something that I think might, well, not necessarily interest you two, but I still think you should see it." Shifting his sandwich to his other hand, Caleb fumbled in his pocket for his phone. Muffled swearing could be heard as he entered his passcode incorrectly.

"You could just put down your sandwich." Asriel pointed out.

"True," admitted Caleb, "but then there's no challenge. I need all of the challenges I can get in this mundane surburban life."

"A monster is one of your friends and you call that mundane?"

"Sure. Monsters aren't really out of the ordinary anymore, haven't been for the past month or so. Now they're just an ordinary part of life, like... corrupt politicians and buildings spontaneously exploding." Caleb finally managed to get past the security measures on his phone, or at least Frisk could inference that he did from the sudden look of triumph on his face. "On second thought, maybe those weren't such good examples. Anyway..." Tapping the screen, he slid the phone across the table to them.

The article stated that South Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, and Utah had passed multiple laws segregating humans and monsters, mostly with Patriot backing, and that most of the Deep South and Midwest had attempted to pass similar laws. It went on to note that the Dakotas, Nevada, and Georgia had similar propositions in their state legislature, although they had yet to be passed. John A. Pence had officially endorsed this legislature and claimed that he would pass a nationwide monster segregation law should he be elected.

Although there weren't any very noticeable signs of anger on Asriel's face, Frisk could tell by the subtle tightening of his jaw that he was considering excessive action against the people considering this legislation, and so hurriedly shoved Caleb's phone back across the table to him before her brother did something drastic.

"Yeah," Caleb said quietly. "I thought you'd treat that with the contempt it deserves."

"Why?" Asriel subconsciously bared his teeth as he glared at the tabletop. "Why would they do something like that?"

"Humans like to be in control." Stuffing his phone back in his pocket, Caleb added, "It's in their nature. Whenever humans see something they don't feel comfortable if they don't own it or have control over it. That's how it's been since the dawn of this species."

Frisk frowned as she realized how he was wording it, but before she could say anything about it Caleb stood up. "Welp, I gotta get going. See you guys next period."

Caleb walked off towards the other end of the cafeteria, and Frisk watched as he dropped the remains of his lunch, tray and all, into the trash can and walked out.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Asriel frowned, "but was he just referring to humans as if he wasn't one?"

"I noticed that too." Frisk replied.

What she didn't say was that she often felt the same way, and she knew that she didn't need to tell her brother that since he already knew.

* * *

Frisk couldn't focus. It wasn't due to everything being a dream this time, though, it was actually because somebody was drumming their pencil on their desk.

With a cursory glance she scanned the room. It wasn't Asriel, as although his pencil was moving frenetically it was over his worksheet and it was held close to vertical. Nor was it Caleb; he had already finished and was holding his pen between two fingers like a cigarette with one hand as he paged through a book about naval warfare with the other.

The pencil drumming stopped abruptly. At first Frisk didn't take much note of it, and it was only when she glanced up from her paper again that she realized that the pencil wasn't the only thing that had stopped.

Not a single thing in the classroom was stirring.

With a sudden chill, Frisk stood up from her seat. Every single person had simply stopped moving. Asriel was frozen in the middle of writing a sentence. Caleb had been caught midway through flipping the page on his book.

A sudden feeling of apathy stole over Frisk, and her vision began to blacken at the edges.

Then a brightness, a rotating, golden star, slashed its way through every corner of her mind and with a cry she fell to the ground.

* * *

Frisk could feel her heart beating in the blackness. It permeated every corner of her body and seemed to wrack the area.

Forcing her eyes open, Frisk couldn't see any difference. There wasn't anything in the dark to distinguish from any other thing simply because there _was_ nothing there.

A glimmer of blue appeared in the distance, growing brighter and brighter. Frisk strained her eyes and could vaguely make out a running figure, but nothing else.

And then it was there, in front of her, and Frisk recognized him.

She tried to say something. Nothing happened.

She tried again...

Nothing happened.

"listen, kid." Sans whispered urgently. "i don't have much time." His eye flared blue suddenly. "i'm trapped here in the void with the other pieces of refuse who have fallen here over time simply because we were afraid of death. determined not to die, but not enough determination to hang on to the world of the living. we need you to save us, frisk."

Now Frisk finally managed to force herself to speak. "Wh... what?"

"go to the apartment papyrus and i shared, and go into my room. there's a door in the back of the closet. in there's my new lab." Sans's voice was becoming more and more frantic as he cast suspicious glances around, and his form was blurring at the edges. "there's a machine in there. big enough for you and maybe asriel to get through to here. you just have to give it power."

"Sa-" Frisk started, but Sans held up a hand. "no time for any other things. the code's four-four-nine-two. just r-"

And then Sans's form had blurred out of existence, snatches of voices crying out in the darkness as determination pierced through the world and ripped it to shreds-

Frisk fell to the floor of the room, screaming out in agony as light blasted again and again. She could hear people screaming, and saw faces drifting above her, but they came and went too fast for her to tell who they were. The color left by their souls lingered, though, flashes of white and purple and green above her until everything blurred into a single twisting centrifuge that threw everything around to-

* * *

Frisk pulled her eyes open with great effort. Her surroundings blurred together as she moved her head and gradually came into focus.

She was in her room, lying in her bed. Somebody had taken the time to diligently tuck the covers around her, and for some reason the fabric immediately next to her was damp.

Before she had time to mull this over, the door creaked open, and Toriel walked in. "Are you feeling better, my child?" she asked. "I baked you a pie."

"Thanks, Mom." Frisk managed.

Toriel set the pie down on her bedside table. "Make sure to get plenty of rest before you get up." She left the room, and the door had barely creaked shut before Asriel came rushing in, slamming the door shut behind him.

"Frisk, you're alright! Thank goodness!" Asriel knelt by her bedside. "Are you feeling any better?"

"I think so." Frisk told him.

"When you just starting screaming and collapsed on the ground... I didn't know what to think!" Asriel continued. "Although..." He started snickering.

"What?"

"I'm not even sure if you'd consider this funny, but..." Asriel managed to calm down. "Caleb didn't notice any of it until you started screaming. Even then, he just looked up from his book with a _What's disturbing my reading?_ expression, and once he saw you, I could almost see him thinking, _Oh, that's nice,_ and he went back to reading for about five seconds before he realized what he'd just seen. He jumped up-" Asriel mimed Caleb leaping up from his desk. "dropped his book, and then turned around and said in this disproportionately calm voice, 'Oh, bloody hell! I lost my page!'"

Frisk couldn't help it and burst into full out laughter, and after a moment Asriel followed her example.

"There was... something weird, though." Asriel subdued his laughter. "You kept mumbling in your sleep."

"What?" Frisk asked.

"You kept saying, 'Behind the closet,' and repeating the same string of numbers over and over again: 4492."

Memory crashed back down on Frisk. "Sans is still there. He's trapped in the void along with some other people. He wants us to come save him... Behind the closet in his room, he said there's a machine that would help us save him and everyone else."

"Did he say that... that Dad was with him?" asked the goat monster eagerly.

"He didn't specify."

"Even so! Dad might..." It took Asriel a visible effort to calm himself down. "He might still be alive..."

"What time is it?" Frisk asked.

Asriel checked his watch. "Uh, 3:02."

"Great!" Frisk shoved the sheets off of her and grabbed the slice of pie. Shoving it down her throat, she felt herself revitalize. "Let's go check now, then, and figure out if that was real or just a hallucination or something."

* * *

The benefits of having a friend in the county police helped a lot, especially when said friend was willing to give you a lift across town provided you didn't tell her superiors.

"Hope you two find whatever it is you're looking for." Undyne said as the two siblings hopped out of her patrol car. "As usual, don't tell anyone I gave you a ride, okay?"

"We won't tell anybody." Asriel promised.

"Thanks for the lift!" Frisk waved as Undyne drove away.

Papyrus's apartment was on the third floor, and Frisk was too filled with adrenaline to take the elevator. Seeing as Asriel was a monster and made largely of magic, it went without saying that he didn't have such hormones pumping through his system. But he had enough determination to make up for that.

Pounding up to Papyrus's door, Frisk knocked eagerly, to no response. "He must be out." She tried the door and found it open, and the two walked inside.

The state of the apartment had really gone downhill since Sans's death, and Papyrus had adopted his brother's habits of not caring about the condition of his living space. The door to Sans's bedroom was closed, as always, but as with the front door it opened with a push.

Asriel pulled open the closet door. Making his way past the slippers and shorts hanging from the ceiling, he pushed on the back wall.

It creaked open on hidden hinges.

Stepping forward onto tile floors, Frisk closed the door behind her. The smell of disinfectant and old papers permeated the air.

At the far end of the room was a machine shaped like an old phone booth, except it was made completely of shotgun-gray metal. Frisk tugged at the handle, and with a pneumatic, sci-fi hiss, the door opened.

"Did Sans tell you what to do?" Asriel stared at the inside.

"No." Frisk shook her head. "Other than that we should get inside of it. I presume this is where we'll need the string of numbers he gave me." Hesitantly she stepped forward into the machine, and Asriel followed her.

As Sans had said, there was just enough space for both of them. As the door swung shut, Frisk saw a keypad on the back of it, with buttons for nine numbers as well as a Yes and No button. Fumbling with nervous fingers, she keyed in the numbers.

 _4._

 _4._

 _9._

 _2._

Everything rumbled and shook around them, the lights guttering hesitantly. A thousand shattered voices gibbered nonsensically as sparks flew across the cramped interior.

With a sudden, incongruous chime, the door opened.

The unquenchable darkness surrounded them, pierced only by the flickering lights from Sans's machine.

"What now?" asked Asriel, shifting uncomfortably.

Frisk shrugged. "I... I don't really know." She took the risk of leaving the machine, and despite the appearance of there being no ground, there in fact was, although it wriggled beneath her like a vast lake of Jello.

Asriel hesitantly set foot on the ground. "I don't like this... We should've gone to see if Alphys had any new data before we charged headlong into a secret lab and catapulted ourselves into the void."

"Probably, but there's no going back, is there?" Squinting, Frisk turned to Asriel. "Can you see anything?"

Asriel shook his head. "I can try fire magic, but I doubt it'll have an effect." Raising a hand upwards, a ball of white fire flickered into existence above his palm. As he had predicted, there was no effect.

At least, not initially.

Then there was a shout and a flicker of bright color in the distance.

"I think I just did something." Asriel extinguished the fire. "Let's hope it was good."

Sans flickered into existence in front of them. "Heya, kids."

There was something off in his voice, but Frisk couldn't tell what it was. "Where is everyone else?"

An odd smile crossed Sans's bony face. "Heh... They're not here."

"What do you mean they're not here?"

"They never were here." Both of Sans's eyes flickered into vibrant red light. "See you."

Gaster blasters appeared behind him, glowing the crimson of shed blood, and vomited forth their deadly light.


	6. Determination

**A/N: To clarify: the Sans here in the void is NOT Underfell Sans. I will not be using characters from other Undertale AUs (I say 'other' because I suppose this qualifies as an AU) such as, say, Error!Sans, Underfell Sans, or anything else of the like.**

 **Also, for those of you who stumbled across "In At the Death" and didn't bother to read "Beyond Forgiveness" because you figured you weren't missing anything, this chapter is going to make a lot of references to the prequel to this story, so you may want to go back and read it if you haven't already.**

"What the hell?!" Frisk jumped to the side, dodging the blasts. Asriel had flung himself in the other direction, and Sans used this to his advantage. Sweeping his hand upward, a wall of red bones separated the two siblings.

"Sans!" Frisk screamed blindly. "What are you doing?"

"What am I doing?" Sans laughed in the corrupted voice that was not his. More red smoke billowed from his eyesockets, forming a cloud above him. " _What am I doing?"_

Bursting into crazed laughter, Sans slumped to the ground. "What am I doing, she asks? I'm getting everything back under MY control! Just how it always was and just how it always WILL be!" Smoke and laughter came forth from the skeleton in similar quantities.

"But you never had the power to reset, Sans!" Asriel attempted to reason with Sans. "Only Frisk and before that I could... right?"

"Ahahahahahahahahahaha!" Sans pulled himself upright, more red smoke spurting forth, now from his jaws whenever he spoke as well as his hollow eyesockets. "You think _I_ am your pathetic friend? Sans has been dead a long, long time! This is just a projection, a form I used to con you two into coming here so that I can destroy you both and regain total control over this world!"

"Then if you're not Sans, then who are you?" Frisk shouted in desperation. " _What_ are you?"

The creature that was not Sans grinned viciously. "Your dead friend once called me 'The Anomaly.' I suppose that title will work for now."

Frisk's heartbeat thundered in her ears. Suddenly she realized that this voice was actually very familiar...

"Who wrote the note?" Asriel questioned. "I've never even met you before, so how would I recognize your handwriting? And we thought we saw Sans outside..."

"I had to project myself into this world," the anomaly replied, "using what I could scrounge of that pathetic skeleton. But he is decayed and nearly gone now from overuse. But I still have one more form I can use..." It laughed triumphantly. "And since they're practically erased from existence, I'll be able to use them about as long as I could Gaster... and that's quite a long time."

Sans's form blew away into dust, and it in turn reshaped into the form of a child. Unlike the other times Frisk had seen them, though, their mouth was twisted and mangled into a demonic mockery of their usual calm smile.

"Chara..." Asriel reached out. "You were the anomaly?"

"You really are an idiot, Asriel." the anomaly laughed victoriously in Chara's voice. "Chara is long gone, and they and I are two very different people."

The anomaly turned to Frisk. "I've been with you since the beginning, Frisk. When you awoke in the Ruins, not only Chara was with you."

Frisk froze, her memory cycling back to that very first time she fell into the Underground, before she had ever heard of SAVE and RESET...

* * *

 _Everything hurt, but despite this Frisk managed to pull herself upright. She didn't say anything, and her legs didn't feel quite her own as she walked confidently down the hall. Although she wanted to, she didn't stop to look at the archway above her, emblazoned with a marking she'd never seen before._

Don't stop to look at meaningless trivialities, _snapped a voice in her head,_ keep moving forward!

* * *

"Now you begin to remember." The anomaly turned away from the two siblings, clasping their hands together. "We were not so different at the beginning, Frisk. Both of us wanted to help everyone initially. We peacefully coexisted, and you only very rarely took the initiative to take control of your body."

"But I didn't ever need-" Frisk started, and then faltered. _But I never really wanted to leave Toriel. Yet I callously questioned her about exiting the Ruins and abandoned her anyway. All the while I kept telling myself, "I don't want to do this. I want to stay here." I thought my desire to continue was overriding everything else, but... was it really me?_

"No." Turning around, the anomaly bared its teeth in a feral grin. "You were never in control, Frisk. You were just a possession I could use to do what I wanted. Think very hard, Frisk. The very first time you met Asriel, on the very first reset, did you REALLY want to save him? Did you really want to save somebody you'd only met for all of ten minutes who had been trying his best to kill you for your entire journey? Did you really want to save somebody you had grown to despise?"

"Yes!" Frisk cried out immediately.

"HA! Don't make me laugh! You never wanted to save him! That was MY idea! I was curious to see if there was even a way, or if this game was rigged so it was impossible!" The anomaly let out a deep breath, looking suddenly calm. "Nine hundred and twenty-five resets. Nine hundred and twenty-five times I grew more disillusioned while you only became more determined. Each consecutive failure alienated me more, but also encouraged you to save the monster you call your brother now even more."

"If it is any consolation, Frisk," the anomaly continued pleasantly, "it was never your choice to enact genocide. It was MINE. My frustration out of my inability to change this game led me to destroy everything, hoping that it would be some relief from the monotony and boredom of saving everyone."

"Then you moved on your own, overwhelming guilt breaking my control over you, and for just a second you were free. Free for long enough to try to steal Sans's soul... which you NEVER would have been able to do without my hacking of the fabric of this universe to allow you to. Didn't you ever wonder why you were able to take his soul when by all rights you should only have been able to take those of a 'boss monster' such as your 'mother' or 'brother?'"

"You reset on your own. That was my first sign that something was up. And as you traveled on, the determination of your combined souls wrenched more and more power away from me, reducing me to a spectator for the most part. And at first I was fine with that. But then when Chara took you and Asriel on a trip into the void, that when I lost all control over my host. I knew at this point that the game was over if you had gained true control over the timeline." The anomaly shook with rage. " _You ended my game. You took my toys away from me and made them 'free.' And then you had the utter gall to bore me with your antics in a prison camp and on this meaningless Surface. I WANT THIS WORLD BACK UNDER_ MY _CONTROL!_ " With a visible effort, it restrained itself from killing them both right there and then. "So, I'll make you an offer." it stated between gritted teeth. "Give me your soul and control over this world again right now, and I won't kill your friends for the first five resets. Do we have a deal?"

Frisk didn't truly understand most of what the anomaly had said, but she did know one thing: It had been using her and her friends as cosmic playthings, and the world to a lesser extent. And if it got back control, then it would just go back to that and she would never have an opportunity like this again to fully end its existence.

Looking over at her brother through the holes in the wall of bones, she saw the same decision in his eyes, and at the same time they nodded in agreement, then turned back to the anomaly.

"Giving you back what someone like you should never have had in the first place was never an option!" Frisk shouted. "SINCE WHEN WERE YOU THE ONE IN CHARGE?"

"Very well, then." the anomaly replied. "We'll just have to do this the hard way, then, won't we?"

Frisk clutched the handle of her knife, and Asriel summoned balls of fire into each hand. With a roar, they ran at the demon controlling the world.


	7. mus chokedup

Frisk reached the anomaly first, and closing her eyes she lashed out at it. She was surprised to hear a sort of metallic _whoosh_ ing sound as she did, and opening her eyes she saw that it had left a reddish trail in the air. It vanished quickly, and a greenish-yellow bar appeared above the anomaly. About one-eighth of it turned red, and the number "24" popped up above it.

"Fascinating." mused the anomaly. "You have figured out how to damage my physical form in this world. Well, you certainly are a fast learner, aren't you?" they finished with a condescending air. Raising a hand, they finished triumphantly, "You will need to learn much quicker than THAT if you want to stand a chance against the might of the master of this universe!" The bones separating Frisk and Asriel lifted into the air and vanished.

The anomaly's stolen eyes emptied and hollowed, and words flickered in the upper left of Frisk's vision, just for a moment: Spr truechara weird. Before she had a moment to try to comprehend it, the anomaly laughed maniacally, and Gaster blasters appeared in the air above the two siblings. More text flickered in front of Frisk: GasterBlaster null. They spat forth their deadly light, and the words "GasterBlasterSlowed" appeared.

Frisk's soul flickered in her chest as the blast caught her retreating. A small bar appeared at the bottom of her vision, a yellow bar partially red with the text 18/20 on it, but it vanished quickly.

"What is happening?" Frisk screamed over at Asriel.

"I don't know!" Asriel replied. Summoning a fireball into his palm, his eyes widened as something yellow flickered in front of him. Nevertheless, he shook it off and launched the fireball at the anomaly.

"Ha!" laughed the anomaly, jumping to the side of it. A red line tore through the air next to them and the fireball vanished. Gray letters spelling out "MISS" appeared next to them.

Even as the anomaly was starting to dodge, Frisk leaped at it and ripped her knife down its side. Words appeared in front of her for a second reading "Dreemurr," and the anomaly turned into Asriel. "What's the matter?" they asked in Asriel's voice as the red line tore into them. The same green bar appeared above them, more of it becoming red and the number "21." "Seeing something you don't like, Frisk?" It flickered again, turning into Toriel, and the words "Toriel" appeared in Frisk's vision. "Or how about now?" they asked again in Toriel's voice.

Flickering a final time, they turned into Chara, the text "Spr Chara" appearing. "I wonder how long it will be before you two crack." they mused.

 _What's with this world?_ Frisk wondered as they readied their knife. _All this random text looks like... like it's..._

Her eyes widened. _Like it's out of a computer program or something..._

"Asriel, cover me!" Frisk shouted. "I think I've got an idea."

Asriel nodded. "Okay." He raised his hand, and balls of fire encircled them, rotating faster and faster.

Frisk reached out with her soul and gasped as she felt the fabric of this world surging around her. Digging deeper, she found lines of numbers and letters surging around her. Hesitantly she reached out for one, and her head split down the middle as her vision was filled with the memory of Sans slamming her as hard as he could into the wall-

Clutching her head, Frisk closed her eyes and took deep breaths. She reached out again, hearing screaming and more metallic swooshes but ignoring them. Trawling for what she wanted, she lowered herself deeper into the sea and suddenly found what she wanted-

-and then she was pulled back into the real world as Asriel screamed in pain. She opened her eyes to see an almost completely red bar above Asriel, just the minutest sliver green at the end. The number 10 lifted into the air above him before vanishing.

Cackling, the anomaly sent forth a blast from a wide wall of Gaster blasters straight at Asriel.

"No!" Frisk screamed, reaching out for her brother.

Asriel curled into a ball and closed his eyes.

* * *

-17-

* * *

Frisk gasped in pain as the text "1/20" flickered in her vision for a moment before vanishing.

"Frisk? Are you okay?" Asriel mumbled, looking up at her.

Frisk almost smiled. _Even when he's so close to death, he still checked to make sure I was okay first._ "To tell the truth, no." she replied. Worry etched itself on Asriel's face.

"I think I have a plan." she said, turning to face the anomaly. Reaching out into the void of numbers and letters, she pulled as hard as she could on what she wanted-

The text "GasterBlaster" floated briefly in her vision, and was quickly replaced by "GasterBlasterSlowed."

The anomaly managed to dodge most of the blasts, but a few caught them, and they hissed in pain with each one. The bar appeared above its head, now nearly three-quarters red, and the number "61" appeared above it.

"So you can now do what I can," the anomaly grinned. "Cute, but it's too late."

 _No!_ Frisk reached out and pulled as hard as she could, using every remaining ounce of determination she had, and lines of text flashed in everyone's vision.

"Asgore sprite"

"Sans sprite"

"Spr Chara"

"Spr mysteryman 0"

* * *

The anomaly suddenly looked very young and alone in the stolen form it carried. Chara glared at them contemptuously. "Seriously?" they asked. "Could you be a little more original, weirdo?"

Sans turned to Frisk and Asriel. "i don't know what you two just did, but it's not going to last." he said. "we're going to return to how we were pretty soon."

"For now," Asgore said in his deep voice, "you two must do your best to get out of here. Do you hear me? You are the future of humans and monsters. You must live. We will take care of this anomaly."

Gaster's smile widened as he glared into the anomaly's stolen eyes. "Ge❄︎ ︎read✡︎ ❄︎o d✋︎e, ✌︎nom✌︎l✡︎." he said half in a language the two siblings did not recognize.

"do you hear us?" Sans snapped. "get back to that machine! now! the code to get back is just 0000. now run before this whole area we're in right now gets dragged into the void!"

"But we can't leave you!" Asriel cried out. "Not when we've just got you all back again!"

"We've already been dead." Chara's eyes narrowed as they raised their knife. "This is just some manifestation Frisk managed to pull up, and it's not going to last long. Now you two get out of here before you're taken with this useless place!"

When Asriel still refused to move, Frisk grabbed ahold of him and dragged him back to the machine. In the distance they could hear the anomaly shouting as the four converged on him, "This is not over! If I cannot have control back then I shall do my best to destroy everything that you have worked for!"

Light shone from the machine as Frisk pushed Asriel into the corner and pulled the door shut.

 _0._

 _0._

 _0._

 _0._

And everything exploded around them in cataclysmic proportions as they were dragged away from one plane of existence and back to their own.

* * *

UNDERTALE is not responding.

null

null

null

null

null

null

null

null

UNDERTALE is not responding.

NULL

NULL

null

...

Run %appdata%

AppData

Local

Undertale

CONTROL

null

enable_control

spr johnapence

control_enabled


	8. Small Shock

**A/N: Last chapter's string of code, to clarify, means that the anomaly/player has taken control of John A. Pence. It may or may not mean that he has the power to save, load, and reset, however, and I won't reveal that for several chapters.**

 **Guest: No. Never. That is almost as bad a ship as Fontcest (SansxPapyrus).**

Asriel slumped against the wall of the machine once it was on its way home. His glazed eyes stared, depressed, into the distance.

Frisk wanted to comfort him, but she knew that he'd probably snap at her, and so instead fiddled with the zipper of her blue hoodie, almost exactly the same as Sans's but without the stains and wear of an unknown number of years. Closing her eyes, she remembered again the fleeting moment of joy she had seen seeing her friends and Gaster come back... and then dismay crashing down as she realized that she couldn't save any of them.

Struck by a wild idea, hoping that maybe it just might work like it had before, she reached out with her determination and pulled as hard as she could, trying to enter the same state she had been in before trying to reach into the void...

But nothing happened.

A single tear trickled from under Frisk's eyelid, followed by more of its kind. Opening her eyes, she realized that Asriel was in the same state as her.

The machine hummed softly, almost like an elevator, the lights dim and dull, the shadows in the corner yet darker.

"He was right there." Asriel spoke in a broken voice, looking at the ceiling. "Dad was right there. I could have tried to save him. But I didn't."

Frisk didn't say anything, knowing that Asriel had in fact tried to save Asgore, but it had been _her_ that pulled him away and stopped him, and also knowing that if she said this she would receive the full brunt of his anger.

"What's the point of this world?" asked Asriel in defeat. "The answer is that there isn't one."

Frisk couldn't say anything.

The machine chimed, and the door opened to Sans's lab behind his room.

* * *

Neither of them thought to call Undyne for a ride home, the taste of defeat still bitter. Instead, they trudged home under an incongruously bright sun, depression and sadness weighing them down.

It was around the time that they were nearing Grillby's that clouds began to gather, and although Frisk hoped it would rain to match her mood, there was none.

It wasn't until they had entered their house that the sky darkened and the air gained a certain damp quality. Even then, the clouds almost spitefully refused to spill their load, and Frisk and Asriel sat sullenly on the couch next to each other.

Toriel apparently hadn't noticed that they were missing and called them in for dinner a few minutes later. However, they only picked at their food, and after a few minutes Toriel noticed that something clearly was up. "Are you two alright?" she asked, a concerned expression on her face. "You've barely touched your food."

Asriel nodded and muttered something incomprehensible. Frisk only partially heard her, and gave no response.

The time after dinner seemed endless, like an infinite loop. Each minute seemed to last an hour, and they were almost grateful for the excuse to go upstairs to their room and go to bed.

It was awhile before either of them could get to sleep that night, and when they slept their dreams were uneasy and full of darkness.

* * *

Despite everything, life still went on. When the next morning came and the sun rose, the clouds still carried their load, apparently having refused to deign to drop it overnight.

Something seemed off when the yellow behemoth rattled up to their front door, and as the two got on the bus there were many whispers and murmurs among the few other kids on the bus. Frisk tried to listen without being too obvious about it, but she didn't catch anything.

They plopped into a seat across the aisle from Caleb, who looked unusually subdued, neither bright and cheerful nor gazing sorrowfully off into the distance. Rather, his forehead was resting on his hand as he glared at nothing in particular, the shark-tooth necklace around his neck dangling aimlessly like a hung body. He was humming something, but neither of them could tell what it was.

As the bus jerked into motion, Caleb pushed himself upright and turned to Frisk and Asriel. Noting their depressed expressions, he commented, "I suppose you've heard about the new speech John Pence gave, then."

"What?" Frisk stared at him. "What're you talking about?"

"You haven't, then." Caleb shrugged. "Welp, I'm not going to pry into what you guys _are_ depressed about. Seriously, though," he changed the subject quickly, "your mom didn't even tell you what Pence was talking about?"

"Mom usually doesn't get up until after us," Asriel explained. "I mean, you know the barbaric hours the school district makes us get up at-"

"What barbaric hours you talking about?" Caleb asked. "I've been getting up at five in the morning since fifth grade."

"What did Pence say?" Frisk hurriedly steered the subject back onto the Patriot leader before Caleb went into a fifteen-minute lecture about why he got up at five in the morning.

"Weeeeeeeell..." Caleb stretched out the word. "Everyone's least favorite Patriot may or may not have given a speech solely dedicated to the Dreemurr family and his opinion on you guys."

"I'm guessing it wasn't flattering." Asriel wrinkled his snout.

"No." Caleb shook his head. "Pence first went on to say that Frisk was in the hands of an irresponsible caretaker and should be removed from any monster influence and placed with a good human foster family, or better yet her original family, hopefully one that would break her of this pro-monster sentiment that is leaking into society."

"What?" Frisk cried out. "He can't do that-"

"Anyway," Caleb continued, "after leaving the subject of your mom..." The emphasis he placed on _your mom_ was only mildly reassuring. "He went on to talk about you two specifically and implied that..." Stopping and closing his eyes, he sighed. "On second thought, maybe I shouldn't continue."

"What did he say?" Frisk demanded.

"I dunno, I'm not sure you guys want to know..." Caleb's voice faltered. "Can you just trust me on this one, let me skip this part and move onto the next?"

"We're fourteen, Caleb. It's not like we're little innocent kids." Frisk considered going on to tell her that her adopted mother had accidentally killed her several times and if that didn't remove all of your innocence she didn't know what did, but decided against it for obvious reasons.

"Okay, then." Caleb opened his eyes. "Do you want me to sugarcoat it or just blatantly tell you what he said?"

"Just tell us!" Frisk rolled her eyes. "Stop beating around the bush and just tell us word for word what he said!"

"As you wish." Caleb shrugged. "Just... don't say I didn't warn you." He went on to tell them precisely what the Patriot's presidential nominee had said about the siblings.

Less than a minute later, Frisk was blushing profusely and Asriel was pressing his ears against his head as hard as he could to block Caleb's voice. "Stop! Stop! Stop!" he yelled.

"You guys are lucky that there's only a few other people on this bus and that they're all sitting up towards the front." Caleb noted, his eyes darkening. "Kids like them will use anything as an excuse to torture you."

Frisk gritted her teeth, wishing she hadn't been so adamant about Caleb telling her what the man had said. "What else did Pence say?"

Shrugging, Caleb replied, "Not much compared to... that. He just spent the next few minutes going through his whole 'this is just one example of how all of the world's problems for the past two years are all because of monsters and we have to deport them all to Canada' routine and wrapped up with a general denouncement of monsters in general. And believe it or not, everyone there ate up all the crap he fed them like it was a bunch of jelly doughnuts. I could go for a doughnut right now," he added wistfully.

Frisk snapped her fingers under his nose. "Focus! Is there anybody who's said anything about this?"

Eyes narrowed, Caleb nodded. "Oh, yes, quite a bit. I'd advise you don't look up what some televangelists have had to say about Pence's speech."

Asriel winced. "I think she meant, like, anything negative about his... thoughts."

"Actually, it's kinda weird. Opposition was pretty few, and that was mostly stuff over here on the Left Coast and in East Liberalville."

Frisk and Asriel stared blankly at him.

"The West Coast and New England, then."

"Seriously?" Frisk shook her head in disgust.

"What's even stranger is that a few centrist newspapers that probably would have said something like they usually do about Pence just kept silent." Caleb frowned. "Even some left-wing newspapers haven't said anything, either. It's almost like someone forced them to keep quiet..." His voice trailed off. "Not like this country is a stranger to that kind of thing."

Closing his eyes, Caleb leaned back onto his seat. His breaths became more quick, although not very noticeably.

The bus stopped at the intersection that Grillby's was on as the traffic light changed to red, and Caleb's head unexpectedly snapped up. " _And that's just what happened, isn't it?"_ he continued in a high-pitched, wavery voice, his eyes suddenly wide and bright. His lips stretched back from his teeth. " _Yes. That's just what happened._ "

"Caleb? Are you okay?" Frisk asked uncertainly.

"No!" Caleb snapped back, head whipping around. "I'm not!"

He stayed silent for the rest of the trip.

* * *

School was mundane as always, classes boring and uninspiring and mostly containing content that they would never need in real life. Nothing particularly noteworthy or interesting happened for the first half of the day.

It wasn't until lunch that Frisk finally managed to get rid of her glazed expression, although this was mostly because lunch was one of the few breaks from the monotonous routine and because glazing over while her friends talked probably wasn't the most polite thing to do.

"Has Pence said anything..." Asriel searched for the word he wanted for a moment and still couldn't find it. "...else?"

"Not that I know of." Caleb shrugged. "Then again, I have kept my cell phone powered off in all of my classes like a good little boy. If he did say anything, we'll find out soon enough when somebody passes our table and makes a scathing remark."

"I'd prefer they don't regardless of whether Pence says something." Frisk commented wryly.

"Same here." Asriel agreed.

"Yeah, but think realistically." Caleb scratched the back of his head. "You honestly think that they're going to keep quiet about something like that?"

"No." Frisk admitted.

They were silent for a moment, punctuated only by Caleb loudly eating a bag of kettle corn.

"I don't know why I haven't asked this yet," Caleb broke in unexpectedly, "but at exactly what time was the barrier broken?"

"Uh, why?" asked Asriel.

Caleb waved a hand impatiently. "Just tell me. I know the day it was broken, but what time?"

"I... actually don't know." Frisk thought hard. "Ahh... I think... about... four in the morning?"

"Thought that was it, but I wanted to make sure." Caleb nodded. "If that's the case, then you guys are the reason that I'm even still here and that my mom's alive."

"What?" Whatever Frisk had been expecting, it wasn't that.

"Lemme explain." Caleb waved a hand in the air. "I remember that, the day the barrier broke, I was woken in the early morning by the noise of the barrier breaking. I don't think there was a single person in town who wasn't. I couldn't get back to sleep, so I went downstairs and found my mom on the couch. She was having a heart attack. I was able to call the hospital and save her life. If I had been minutes later, she would have died, and I would have been sent to live with my uncle in Nevada. Really, it's because of you guys that my mother is alive. I owe you one."

 _It's Chara that he owes, really, but..._ Frisk felt the same familiar twinge of guilt and sorrow that came whenever she remembered the sacrifice Chara had made.

Neither of the two sibling knew what to say.

"Well, just thought you should know so you can collect later." Caleb scrunched up the bag of kettle corn in his fist. "I gotta finish my homework. See you guys later."

Frisk and Asriel watched him leave, then turned to each other, unsure how to proceed.


	9. But the Earth Refused to Die

**A/N: Warning: This chapter will contain a somewhat large amount of profanity later on, as well as a rather grotesque mutilation/death. If you wish to skip that part, it will begin under the asterisk.**

 _CAMP EBOTT_

 _FEBRUARY 12TH, 2015_

 _"hey, kid."_

 _"Oh, hello, Sans." Frisk turned around to face the grinning skeleton. "I haven't seen you for a few days."_

 _"well, you know what i'm capable of, considering that you had the same abilities as me for a bit." Sans fell into step beside her as they walked through the collection of tents. Towards the center of the camp was the ramshackle house that had been put up for the Dreemurr family, although it couldn't really be called a house as there weren't very many rooms, and since Toriel refused to share a room with Asgore despite accepting his offer to stay in the same house, the king was the only one with a real bedroom. Frisk and Asriel just slept in sleeping bags on the floor._

 _"Where were you off to this time?" Frisk asked._

 _"i hid in the president of the united states' office for a bit and listened in on a cabinet meeting from inside a cabinet." Sans's perpetual grin only grew wider. "it sounds like the president would be okay letting monsters free, but his secretaries of state and defense are_ very _against it. from what I could hear, the vice-president is a bit iffy on it but probably would be fine with it if more of congress would be. why does the government of this country have such a confusing system anyway?"_

 _"It's a long story." Frisk sighed. "Tell you what, once we get out of here I'll buy you a guide to this country's Constitution so that you can puzzle it out for yourself."_

 _"sounds nice, kid, but it'll probably just end up in the self-sustaining tornado in my room." Sans admitted. "at least, assuming I can get one up and running on the surface, that is. a lot simpler with a king, if you ask me."_

 _"Well, yeah, but from what I remember in my history lessons most kings let the power go to their heads and became tyrants. Sorry, I can't remember more." Frisk strained to remember more and was ashamed that she couldn't. "Then again, that was over nine hundred resets ago, which sums up to almost three years, so..."_

 _"hey, you're doing better than me, kid." Sans shrugged. "i can't remember anything from when I was your size."_

 _Frisk laughed and elbowed him, being careful to make it gentle so she didn't kill him. "Come on, seriously? You're not even trying!"_

 _Sans fished a ketchup bottle from his pocket and took a swig. "guilty. another thing," he added as he put the bottle back in his pocket. "you promised me there would be ketchup on the surface, but they haven't given me any. were you lying to me, kid? because if you were you're going to have a bad time. papyrus is also depressed because they haven't allowed him to make any spaghetti."_

 _"Considering their paranoia, they'd probably think he's making a bomb to run up to the gates with and shout, 'Allahu Akbar' before blowing us all to kingdom come."_

 _"i... don't even know how to respond to that. you're evading my original question, though. bad human." He wagged a finger at Frisk. "is there any ketchup on the surface, or were you lying to make me happy?"_

 _"There's plenty of ketchup on the surface!" Frisk waved a hand around. "They just haven't given you any because they're only feeding you enough to keep you alive! Haven't you noticed how they give me more food? It's because I'm a human."_

 _"don't you try to redistribute that extra food you get among the monsters?"_

 _"Well, yeah, but... everyone except Asriel refuses, and he's just a pig."_

 _"i thought he was a goat."_

 _Frisk glared at him._

 _"whoa, kiddo, why don't you_ chill out _and stop giving me that_ cold _glare."_

 _"Sans, there isn't any snow, and it's 68 degrees."_

 _"but it's still winter."_

 _"You," Frisk glared even harder at the skeleton, "are an obnoxious person and a terrible friend."_

 _"thanks, you're my favorite person ever too."_

 _Frisk sighed. Despite all of her efforts, she just couldn't stay mad at Sans for long. He was Sans, after all. "Why don't you go back to the tent you and Papyrus share? He's probably wondering if you attacked the gates in some suicide attempt by now."_

 _"nah, he knows i'm too lazy to do something like that. but i should probably get back 'home' anyway. see you around, kid." Sans trudged off through the half-dried mud as it caked itself on his slippers._

* * *

Caleb was back from... wherever he had been fairly quickly, and sat down next to the siblings again. "Welp, that was quicker than I expected." he commented. "Looks like you get to enjoy my company a little longer."

"Caleb, there's only five minutes until the bell." Frisk pointed out.

"A lot can happen in five minutes," was Caleb's response.

He turned out to be more right than he knew.

Only one minute later, Caleb was in the middle of telling the two about a group of upperclassmen he'd heard speaking in a very derogatory way about monsters and making many references to Pence's earlier speech, especially the part about Frisk and Asriel.

"...and I swear, it took everything in my power to just walk past them and not attack them. Quite honestly, these days I'm ashamed of the company I keep as a human being." He was starting to say something else but stopped in the middle of the first syllable as his head whipped around. "Crap," he muttered, and then at Frisk and Asriel's questioning looks, "It's those upperclassmen I was telling you about."

They passed by the table, and all three kids let out a brief sigh of relief once they were past. "I honestly thought they were going to do something... stupid." Caleb's eyes darkened. "If they had, I don't think I would have been able to hold myself back."

And then the last of them darted back. Frisk tensed as he passed her and turned to Asriel. In a polite and friendly voice, he asked, "Excuse me, are you Prince Asriel Dreemurr?"

"I... yes, yes I am." From the expression on his face, Asriel was taken aback by the politeness of the human.

"Ah, yes, I thought so." The upperclassman's expression turned ugly. " _Freak._ Why don't you go back to hell where you came from instead of stealing from your superiors? This is human land and has been for uncountable millennia, so stop usurping on what is ours and leave this pure land before it, too, is tainted?" Flipping Asriel off, he was about to say something else, but stopped.

Caleb rose from the table. "So..." His voice was low and dangerous. "You're a Patriot supporter, I assume?" Everyone could hear the capital P thud into place.

"Of course," replied the upperclassman. His friends by now had noticed him missing and doubled back around to see what was going on. "John A. Pence is a true American hero who isn't afraid to say the truth when the spineless politicians did nothing to stop the menace that monsters are."

 _ *** (A/N: Here is the asterisk I mentioned earlier, this is your last chance to skip this part.**_

" _Monster_ is an ethnicity, not an insult." Caleb's eyes narrowed. "You really can't think of another way to resolve your personal issues than making racist comments? Or are you just too drunk on the _bullshit_ you've been fed by the Patriots to see the truth?"

Frisk's eyes widened. She had never heard Caleb swear before.

"I have seen the truth!" the upperclassman responded with a proud gleam in his eyes. "John A. Pence has nothing to do with it."

And then she remembered something he had told her and Asriel before: _"If I ever swear, I'm really serious... and I'm probably about to do something I'll regret later on."_

Asriel clearly remembered this also, as Frisk could see him mouthing at Caleb, "Whatever you're planning, it's a bad idea."

"I appreciate your concern, Asriel," Caleb told the goat monster, "but I know what I'm doing." The beginnings of a smile crept across his face as he turned back to the teenager who was probably two years older and six inches taller than him. "Never before has the path laid out before me been so clear, in fact."

Caleb's hands bunched into fists. "So, _Patriot_..." He spat the word out like an insult. "Are you still going to keep up the path you're going? Because if you don't walk away right now..." If Caleb had been Sans, his eye would have burst into bright light at this point. "I'm going to make you regret everything you've done up to this point."

The upperclassman laughed uproariously. " _You?_ Some random freshman is going to 'teach me a lesson?'" He made his voice into a snide, cruel parody of Caleb's. "You can go ahead and try."

The cafeteria had gone completely silent. All eyes were on this strange showdown between a Patriot and... whatever Caleb was.

Caleb's eyes glinted. "Very well. Just don't say I didn't warn you." And before he had even finished talking he had drawn back a fist and swung as hard as he could.

The Patriot was completely unprepared for the first punch, and it caught him square in the gut. He was ready for the next one when Caleb swung his other fist, and grabbed ahold of his wrist and bent it back as hard as he could.

With a grunt, Caleb kicked the upperclassman as hard as he could in the groin, and the Patriot doubled over. Caleb took the advantage, and picking up his backpack swung it as hard as he could into the side of the Patriot's head, and he fell over on his side, one ear oozing a small amount of blood.

With a wild laugh, Caleb bent over his prone foe. "Are you going to say stupid things like that again?"

"You're... a monster..." rasped the upperclassman. "I... will kill you for this..."

"I'm a monster, huh?" Caleb's grin was feral. "I'll take that as a compliment. Much better than being a bigoted, worthless human like YOU!"

The upperclassman's friends started forwards, either to beat up Caleb or to help their friend, but they stopped short in their tracks as the upperclassman rolled onto his back and tensed his legs, ready to jump back up and continue the fight.

He never got the chance.

Caleb raised his leg and drove his foot as hard as he could into the upperclassman's face. Something broke with a horrifying _crunch_ , and blood spurted everywhere.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Wild laughter bubbled from Caleb as he brought his foot down on the Patriot's face again and again, ignoring the screams and blood and snapping noises. "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

After about five more stomps, Caleb took his foot away and set it down on the floor. "You deserve this, you son of a bitch."

The mess he had left behind was barely recognizable as a human being anymore, the front of the skull shattered and bone poking from the blood-coated skin. The jaw had shattered into two pieces, like a pair of mandibles, and looked like they were trying to fall away from the head, stopped only by the skin there. One eyeball had come out of the shattered eyesocket, hanging precariously from the hole in the skull. Blood coated everything, and screams filled the surrounded area.

"Caleb...?" Frisk was horrified, both by the sudden change in Caleb and the devastation he had suddenly wreaked on his stronger foe.

Caleb turned around, eyes still wide. "What?" he asked in a strangely high-pitched voice. "Don't tell me he didn't deserve it."

Asriel's face was just as horrified as Frisk's. "Caleb, _what did you do?_ "

Caleb turned his head around, and all of the hyperactive energy he had beaten the Patriot into submission with drained away. "Oh, shit." he muttered, sinking down onto his knees. "Please tell me I didn't do this..."

Neither of the siblings said anything, but the looks on their faces said it all.

"Oh, _shit._ " Caleb's face was horrified. "Oh, _shit..._ What the hell did I do?"

Sirens sounded in the distance.

 **A/N: So, in case you guys skipped over the latter part or couldn't tell what just happened, Caleb just beat the hell out of an upperclassman and actually ended up killing him.**

 **On a somewhat related note, I've set up a poll on my page asking you what color you think Caleb's soul is, so please take the time to vote. The poll will be up until the last chapter of "In At the Death" comes out, at which time it will be replaced for reasons which will be explained then.**


	10. Don't Give Up

**A/N: So, apparently most people think that Caleb has a yellow soul for justice. I won't confirm or deny that until the second-to-last chapter, which is when his soul color will be revealed.**

Caleb's eyes were wild as the sound of sirens grew closer. Whipping his head around to face the siblings, he pleaded, "Please help me."

"I... I don't know what we can do..." Frisk turned to Asriel, but he had his eyes squeezed shut. Suddenly, a blue aura erupted from him. Blinking away the glare, she saw Asriel running towards the exit of the cafeteria. "Come on!" he called.

As if in a daze, Caleb staggered after him, and Frisk took up the rear. Turning back before she left, she noticed that nobody was moving to stop them.

Taking the lead, Asriel turned the corner. Frisk realized that he was headed towards the back of the school. Each step Caleb took with his right foot left a bloody mark on the floor that grew progressively lighter as they neared the door.

They burst out the back door and into the glaring sun. Asriel collapsed against the school wall, exhausted. "I wasn't sure... if I could hold it that long..." he panted.

"Hold what?" Frisk asked.

Asriel held up a finger as he pressed the screen of his cell phone and brought it to his ear. "Mom, can you come pick us up?" A pause. "It's urgent, I'll explain later." Another pause. "Okay, thanks. Please hurry. We're around the back of the school."

Turning off his cell phone, Asriel shoved it in his pocket. He explained, "I've been practicing... other magic. I figured out how to temporarily stop time for everyone except myself and the people I choose, but..." He closed his eyes. "It's very draining. Luckily Mom's close by, so she should be here before the police."

Caleb blinked slowly as if he had just awoken from a bad dream. "Oh, God, I can't believe I did that..." He bent over and was violently sick on the asphalt.

The sirens grew loud.

Louder.

Yet louder.

"The thing was, though..." Caleb managed, spitting on the blacktop and wiping his mouth. "It felt _good_. It felt good to put him in his place... It felt like I was doing the right thing." He shook his head. "Justice can't always be served the way you intend to."

Frisk wasn't sure what to make of that, and it was at that moment that Toriel's car turned the corner and stopped in front of them.

"Good, Mom's here." Asriel moved towards the car. "I just hope she was quicker than the police."

"You guys do know the penalty for aiding a felon, right?" Caleb seemed to have fully recovered by this point. "You know the risk you're taking?"

"You're our friend, Caleb." Frisk replied. "Now just get in the car."

Asriel took shotgun immediately, leaving Frisk and Caleb to sit in the back of the car. Caleb slumped against the back of his seat, face pale. He cupped his hands over his chest and whispered something, but Frisk couldn't hear what it was.

"Now, my children," Toriel said as the car slowly backed into the road, "you will explain what happened."

Frisk started, "There was an accident-" but Caleb raised a hand to stop her. "There's no point in lying, Frisk." he said. "I'll handle this." Turning to Toriel, or at least the back of her seat, he stated, "First off, I'd like to make it clear that everything that happened was my fault. Frisk and Asriel had no part in this except helping me to escape."

Toriel's expression was guarded. "What exactly happened?"

Caleb took a deep breath and spilled it out in one long word. "Ikilledapersonatschoolafewminutesago."

"What?!"

And so Caleb explained what happened as Toriel drove the car to her home. "Again, Frisk and Asriel had no part in this." he concluded as the car stalled in front of Toriel's home. "If anybody is to take the blame for this, let it be me. All they did was help me avoid being shot by the police when they arrived."

Toriel stared out the front window, her brow dropping as she made her decision.

She pulled the car around and parked it in the driveway. "Although you should not have killed anyone, Caleb, I believe that it was not your fault. We will figure out something for you, I am sure. Come inside."

* * *

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

 _Successful._

 _Successful._

 _Very successful._

 _Indeed._

 _Everything proceeds as planned._

 _My puppet spreads sedition while my arms of control extend even farther._

 _It was humorous to see how that kid went crazy._

 _Very humorous._

 _Ha ha ha ha._

 _HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA_

 _Soon my puppets will answer my calling. They will eradicate what I despise._

 _And she will reset eventually. She'll have to find a way._

 _Everything's going according to plan, after all._

 _And she doesn't even know there is a plan._

 _Clever._

 _Clever._

 _Clever, clever, clever, cleverclogs, cleverclogs, ha ha ha..._

 **I WILL HAVE MY GAME BACK.**

 **AND WE WILL PLAY FOREVER.**

 **EVERYTHING WILL BE MINE AGAIN.**

And we'll always be together.

* * *

01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01111001 01100101 01110010 00101110 00001010 01001110 01101111 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00101110 00001010 01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100110 01101001 01101110 01101001 01110011 01101000 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110010 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100001 01100111 01101111 00101110

 **A/N:** **I'm thinking of starting up a new story called "Reset 927" which will basically be a bunch of one-shots set in this world about the time the monsters spent in the camp, so please tell me in the comments whether you think I should do that.**


	11. Megalovania

**A/N: Enough of you guys wanted "Reset 927" to be a thing that I've decided to post it. I posted the first one-shot yesterday, and there will be more to follow. It should be second on my profile, although I'm planning to update "Final Switch" after this so it might be the third story from the top if you're reading this more than half an hour or so after this was posted.**

 **Also, warning: This chapter will include a somewhat depressing monologue and implications of suicidal thoughts.**

Toriel opened her door, and the three teenagers followed suit. "Caleb, get into the house." Toriel instructed in a quiet tone. "You must not be seen."

Although the movement into the house wasn't very smooth, it did serve to hide Caleb from anybody on the street. Once they were inside, Toriel locked the door, and Caleb slumped against the wall, eyes glazed.

Toriel left the front room, closing the door behind her. Vaguely Frisk wondered where she was going, but before her train of thought went any further it was cut off by a voice.

"I guess I deserve this to happen to me." Caleb said quietly. He slid along the wall down onto the floor and hugged his knees. "I know I'm not the greatest person."

"Nobody's perfect." Frisk tried to reassure her friend.

"Yeah, but you never killed somebody willingly, no, _joyfully_ , knowing that it was wrong and doing it anyway because it felt like you were serving justice." Caleb sighed, and the melancholy sound seemed to reverberate around the silent room.

Frisk hadn't done what Caleb had said, at least, not on all of the parts he'd listed, and had nothing to say.

A ragged grin split Caleb's face. "Despite everything, though, I will persevere. I can probably find a way around this..." His voice trailed off thoughtfully. "The Underground is still empty, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah, asides from a few monsters who decided to stay there because it felt more like home." Asriel replied.

"I can probably hide there, then." Caleb sighed. "Going into hiding is probably the smartest thing I can do right now."

"Won't you get lonely?" Frisk asked, concerned.

Caleb waved a hand nonchalantly. "I'll be fine. I prefer being alone, anyway, and it's not like I'll be all by myself."

The silence seemed to echo almost louder than anything anybody had said.

"To be completely honest," Caleb looked up, "I think I'll actually prefer it underground. I haven't changed, have I? Heh... I never even stooped to the delusion that I had in the first place." He stopped abruptly.

The uncomfortable silence returned until Frisk felt as if she had to do something to break it. "Caleb, what do you mean?"

"The truth is, I-"

A sudden explosion sounded. Caleb flinched, an expression crossing his face like Frisk had never seen before. The windowpanes rattled.

"What the hell was that?" Asriel shouted. After a few seconds, he repeated his question, with a different word in place of _hell_.

Frisk didn't answer her brother's question, staring in shock out the window. A small plume of smoke rose nearby.

"I'm going to go see what's going on." Frisk scrambled to her feet.

She raced down the stairs and through the open front door. Toriel was standing outside, looking off down the street.

"What happened?" Frisk asked.

"I don't know, my child." Something flickered in Toriel's eyes.

Frisk took a hesitant step towards the sidewalk, and when her mother did nothing to stop her, moved more quickly towards the street.

Someone shouted, "No!"

The wind was howling...

Frisk's feet seemed to move by themselves as she ran towards the explosion. Some nagging voice in the back of her head was warning her, _don't go anywhere near the explosion, do you want to have a bad time_ , but Frisk ignored it.

In front of the grocery store down the road, a ragged hole had been torn into the asphalt of the parking lot. There were pieces of bodies, and that was all Frisk saw before she forced herself to turn away.

She heard somebody shout something about a bomb, and then she was running as fast as she could back for her house.

* * *

Justice had been served. It wasn't anywhere near close to what _those humans_ had done, and more would be needed to done before they as a species came close to atoning for their sins, but it was a start.

It was a start.

It had also given him some rules for improving his technique: namely, car bombs could not cause anywhere near to the amount of destruction he required.

"THEY WILL PAY!"

A quiet shout, coming from one who knew suffering and pain and was _determined_ to make humans pay for everything.

Hollow, empty eye sockets gazed onto the scene. The skeletal grin grew wider.

Drawing the folds of the blue hoodie tighter around himself, he stepped back into the shadows and melted away into darkness.


	12. Heartache

**A/N: So, I've completely planned out the entire storyline by now, down to almost everything in each chapter. I may as well warn you that the feels train is going to enter the station very soon, if not in this chapter, depending on your views on some characters.**

 **Also, I received the request to show Caleb's stats, so here you go:**

 **CALEB CONRAD ATK 10 DEF 10**

 **HP 48** **LV 8 EXP 500**

 **He doesn't even remember what or who he's fighting for anymore.**

 **But despite everything, he's still going to do his best.**

 **Weapon: Old Sneakers**

 **Armor: Sharktooth Necklace**

 **(Caleb's increased LV and EXP is from killing the Patriot supporter. Before that he would have had zero EXP and LV. Since I don't believe it's stated how much EXP killing a human is worth in-game, I made a ballpark estimate with some help from the wiki.)**

 _The figure advanced, feet tapping against the cold blue floor of the CORE._

 _"What is that?"_

 _Frisk had no answer. Yet, somehow, she felt like she had been here before._

 _Under the red hood covering its face, the eyes of the person burned bright yellow._

 _It extended a hand, and with a chill Frisk realized that it was degraded and in a decayed state, as if the flesh had simply been scorched away from the tips of the fingers._

Wait... _Sudden realization came to her._ Could this be...?

 _"You have something that belongs to me!" the person shouted, eyes wide. "I need it back or I'll die! Give it back to me!"_

 _With a sudden exhalation the figure fell to the ground, energy spent._

 _Frisk turned it over and pulled the hood back, and gasped as she realized who it was..._

* * *

The lunch table where Frisk and Asriel sat was empty, asides from them. That in of itself was not unusual.

Now, though, most of the tables around it had been vacated as well. This, Frisk supposed, was expected.

It was clear that there was a bit of a seating issue in the rest of the cafeteria, with the human students crowded together and clearly very uncomfortable being so close to each other, but it was also clear that they didn't want to sit anywhere near to the Prince of Monsters and the human who was his sister, not just because of who they were but also because they had been friends with somebody who had slaughtered one of their own.

"I hope Caleb's doing alright in the Underground." Asriel poked at his food.

"We don't even know if he did get to the Underground." Frisk pointed out. "He did only have us take him to the foot of the mountain, since he thought that would be too risky for him."

Asriel waved a hand. "Caleb's a resourceful kid and there aren't any guards. I'm sure he managed."

"Still, he could have been caught..."

"Have a little faith in his abilities. If he could beat a Patriot to death..." Asriel's voice faltered. "Well, I'm sure he could... manage to make it."

"Despite everything, I don't think he really wanted to kill anyone." Frisk shrugged. "And I doubt he'll be willing to do it again."

"If you say so." Asriel shrugged.

Frisk couldn't think of any good conversation topics, and they lapsed into silence.

"Frisk, I have a question." Asriel broke in suddenly.

"Yeah?" Frisk looked up.

Asriel paused for a moment, then burst out. "If you had the power to reset again, would you take everything back to how it was and reset all of this?"

Frisk's face was shadowed as they responded. "Only if I knew I could still save as many people as possible... including you... and make things better. If resetting would just mean leading us through the same old song and dance as before, with barely any change, then... what's the point?"

"Right." Asriel looked down again. "Save as many people as possible."

Despite everything, Frisk suddenly felt as if that was the wrong answer. "Asriel, is something wrong?"

"Yes." Asriel's expression was guarded. " _Everything_ in this damn world is wrong, it seems sometimes."

Without a response again, Frisk said nothing. This time, there was no new conversation started.

* * *

The bus ride was just as ordinary as it had always been, even without Caleb. It was almost like the world was continuing to go by without any change despite his disappearance.

Frisk trudged up the front walk to the door, and she and Asriel dropped their backpacks off to the side before walking into the kitchen.

"Greetings, my children." Toriel turned around. "I'm afraid I didn't prepare anything for your snacks..."

Frisk waved a hand in the air. "It's okay, Mom. I'm not really that hungry anyway."

"I'm not either." Asriel took the TV remote and pressed the power button.

"Ah, I did not-" But then Toriel stopped, and like her children stared at the announcement.

"Breaking news!" announced the newscaster, looking like he'd never had a better day in his life. "The body of murderous fugitive Caleb Conrad was found on the side of Mount Ebott. From what detectives on the scene could tell, it appeared to be a suicide."

The camera changed to a feed of a body sprawled in a river, bloody holes torn through the chest. Before Frisk could tell if it was Caleb, or even really see the body, the camera switched back to the newscaster.

"Identification is not 100 percent clear," enthused the newscaster, "but police are confident that it is Conrad. Before the murder, he was seen in the general vicinity of Prince Asriel Dreemurr and his adopted human sister, and police have advised citizens to keep their distance from them as well, as it is unknown whether they were also involved in the crime. Even if they were not, though, those at the scene have said that it appeared as though the prince was egging Conrad on, and in addition to this-"

Toriel snatched the remote from her son and turned off the TV. "That is quite enough television for today." she snapped, and neither Frisk nor Asriel argued.

There didn't seem any point to homework, not after what they had just seen, and so the two didn't even bother to start theirs. Instead, they remained sitting at the table. A depressed silence filled the room.

Fortunately, before anybody could say anything awkward that they would regret later on, the phone rang. Toriel was first to it, and listened for a moment. "Children, Papyrus is missing again."

"Did you tell them to check Sans's grave?"

"That's the first place Undyne looked. He can't be found anywhere."

"Maybe he was just taking a longer route to the cemetery." Frisk leaped up. "I'll go check."

"I'm coming with you." Asriel followed her out the door.

* * *

Emerging from the edge of the woods, Frisk squinted into the dimly lit clearing. "I can't see him..."

"Maybe we're just too far off..." Asriel moved forwards, and then froze.

"Asriel, what is it?" Frisk's eyes opened wide in shock as she saw what he was seeing.

A light sprinkling of dust covered the gravestone. A shredded piece of red fabric fluttered limply, caught on a crack in the stone.

"No, no, no, no..." Frisk felt tears forming in her eyes. As she turned around, the wind picked up in speed again, whipping her blue hoodie around wildly.

"You better not be dead, Papyrus!" Frisk called out into the shadows, desperately hoping against hope that this wasn't real...

But nobody came.

Asriel dropped to his knees and pulled the fabric from the stone. "It's the same material as his scarf." he reported.

Frisk fell to the ground, barely catching herself in an upright position just in time. _No, Papyrus can't be dead! It's all just some elaborate prank!_

"I'll call Undyne." Asriel took his cell phone from his pocket and began scrolling through his contacts, and Frisk made no move to stop him.

* * *

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	13. Ruins

"Hey, Asriel?"

Grunting, Asriel rolled over in his bed. "What is it, Frisk?"

"I can't sleep..."

"I'm having some trouble getting to sleep, too, but..." Asriel let his head fall back onto his pillow as he gathered his thoughts. "There wasn't anything we could have done for Caleb or Papyrus."

"We don't even know if either of them are dead." Frisk pointed out.

"Caleb, maybe not, but..." Asriel sighed. "I think it's pretty clear that Papyrus is gone now."

"But how? Why?"

"I don't know, okay?" Pulling the covers up over his head, Asriel continued, "There isn't anything we can do or could have done."

"If I could have kept my powers to reset..." Frisk's voice trembled in the dark room. "I could have saved them all. I could have brought everything back to how it was..."

"Well, what about me?" Asriel burst out. "You had to commit _total genocide_ and take Sans's soul to kick off the string of events leading up to saving me. Do you really think you'd be able to replicate the exact same events, especially without the anomaly helping and controlling you? You heard what they said: without them you could never have taken his soul in the first place, and without that you couldn't have-"

"I don't know what to do!" Frisk burst out. "I'm just an ordinary teenager! I shouldn't be worrying about all of my friends _dropping dead_ around me because of my own species' prejudice!"

"Not all humans are like that, you know." Asriel tried to comfort her. "I mean, granted, most of monsters' support comes from the liberals, but..."

"I had almost forgotten that monsterkind does have some human support." Frisk sighed. "But it's not like..." Her voice trailed off.

"Frisk?" Asriel called, suddenly frightened.

"Wait." Frisk's voice had changed, and Asriel was suddenly reminded of her as she had been nearly two years ago, as she promised to save him no matter what it took. "We can _use_ that human support to try to raise more."

"What do you mean?"

Asriel heard her covers being kicked off haphazardly onto the floor, and then her footsteps as she walked across the room. The light clicked on.

"Frisk, what are you..." Rubbing his eyes at the harsh flare of light, the goat monster squinted at the clock. "It's midnight, can't whatever you're doing wait until later?"

"No." Frisk's voice trembled. "After everything that's happened... Sans, Asgore, and now Papyrus are all dead. I won't let anyone else die because of humans."

"Frisk, my dad's the only one we know was killed by a-"

"Sans was killed by a human's laziness and ineptitude. As for Papyrus, it would be pretty easy to believe that somebody saw him out there by himself and decided to take advantage. The anomaly swore revenge, well, I'm not going to let them destroy the happy ending I worked for any more than it already has been. I'm _determined_ to stop them." Frisk moved over to the laptop sitting at the desk next to the window, opened the lid, and began typing.

"Frisk..." Asriel decided that negotiation was futile and slid out of his bed. "What are you doing, anyway?"

"Well, first I'm going to see what the Patriots have been up to." Frisk's face was stony. " _Know your enemy,_ they say." she continued. "Well, I'm taking that principle to heart."

"Yeah, I get that, but what are you looking for exactly?" Asriel came over to crouch by her side.

"Anything we can use against them." Frisk replied, eyes narrowed. "Glad this is one of those new computers with that 'news' app installed."

"Here, look at that one." Asriel suggesting, tapping a claw against the screen.

"'John A. Pence advocating harsher measures against monsters...'" Frisk sighed, leaned back in her chair, and swore loudly.

"You're lucky Mom's a light sleeper." Asriel commented. "Besides, it's not like he's going to carry more than a few states. Honestly, I doubt anybody really takes him seriously. The worst he'll do is carry a few states in the conservative belt and yank the election into a Democratic victory."

"I know, but I've also learned to fear the worst after... everything that's happened." Frisk clicked on the article. "What does he want to do now, anyway?"

According to the article, Pence was advocating total police lockdown on predominantly monster-populated sections of large cities in order to prevent them from killing the humans around them, and possibly fencing off said sections and not allowing passage between the areas without passes. He had voiced this opinion while travelling in the Midwest and had received a standing ovation for his trouble.

"Yeah, and when somebody else required people of a certain ethnic group to carry around passes verifying who they are that went so well." Frisk closed the webpage. "I really do hope that less people take him seriously than everyone seems to think, or else we're all in trouble."

Reopening the Chrome page, Frisk started typing.

"What now?"

"I'm putting up a webpage." Frisk's shoulders tensed. "I'm going to organize an anti-Patriot and pro-monster rally in Sacramento. We're not too far away, and it doesn't matter if we skip school to be there. I mean, if _we're_ there, of all people, we'll be sure to convince our supporters to come."

"As well as the wackos who want to assassinate us." Asriel rolled his eyes. "Don't you remember what Caleb told us about Pence's speech a few days back?"

Frisk covered her face. "Ugh, don't remind me."

"Well, don't you think his speculations would probably just incense people against us even further?"

"It's not like what he said was based in actual fact or anything." Returning to the keyboard, Frisk added, "Anyway, we can worry about all that later. Are you in or not?"

Smiling weakly, Asriel shrugged. "I don't have much of a choice, do I? How are we getting to Sacramento?"

"We can get Undyne to drive us and just get her to promise not to tell Mom. Besides, do you honestly think she won't be going already?"

"Good point." Asriel peered at the screen. "When's it going to be?"

"Tomorrow at noon."

"Tomorr- Are you out of your mind? _Tomorrow?_ Doesn't this kind of thing require preparation and all?"

"Not really." Frisk finished typing and turned to her brother. "You just need determination, and plenty of it, and I don't think either of us are lacking in that."

"So are we really going through with this, then?" Asriel raised an eyebrow.

Frisk's finger hovered over the _enter_ button for a moment before she brought it down with a decisive finality. "Yes. We are."

* * *

"Are you sure your mom's going to be okay with you skipping school to go to this rally?" Undyne asked, pulling out of the driveway.

"Yeah," Frisk lied, "we already sorted out everything with her yesterday."

"Okay, good." Undyne floored the accelerator. "You kids buckled in?"

Both teenagers nodded.

"We're going to be stopping at my house on the way back, in case Alphys changed her mind about coming." explained the monster as she spun the car through a perfect U-turn.

Frisk nodded and turned to Asriel. "How many people have confirmed they'll be coming by now?"

"One second." Asriel refreshed the page on his cell phone, and his eyes widened. "Wow, that's... actually more than I expected."

"What?"

"We're almost up to _six thousand_ people who've agreed to come," Asriel turned the phone around so his sister could see, "and I'm fairly sure a decent chunk of them are humans."

"Good." Frisk nodded in satisfaction. "Glad to see confirmation that we do have allies out there."

Undyne slammed on the brake suddenly, and both kids were launched forwards in their seats. Rolling down the window, Undyne called at the house, "Did you change your mind?"

Alphys started to open her mouth, then suddenly closed it. Fierce resolve seemed to pass through her eyes before she said, "Okay, sure, I'm coming."

"Alright, get into the shotgun seat, then." Undyne opened the door for her girlfriend, and Alphys climbed in next to her.

"S-so where are we going, anyway?" Alphys asked nervously.

"The California State Capitol Museum." Frisk replied confidently.

* * *

Alphys's eyes widened in surprise as the car pulled up onto the side of 9th Street. "W-wow. I mean, I didn't really think that this many people would come up for the rally. I mean, if I didn't know otherwise I'd think there were more humans than monsters here!"

Collective groups of humans and monsters clogged the street in front of the California State Capitol and the grounds behind it. Although many of them calmly sat or stood where they were, some of them roamed among the assembled people, occasionally shouting things that Frisk couldn't really hear from over there.

"So... how do you participate in a rally, anyway?" Asriel asked nervously. "I've, uh, never actually been in one."

Frisk laughed and threw an arm around his shoulders. "I haven't, either, but I still managed to organize all of... this." She waved an arm at the crowd. "I'm sure we'll pick it up as we go along."

"I was in a smaller monsters' rights rally a few months back in San Francisco." Undyne looked confident in herself and her friends and determined to at least contribute to this effort against the Patriots. "Just follow my lead."

Something flickered in the corner of Frisk's vision, and she whirled around to see a group of people consisting of both humans and monsters holding up a large piece of paper. "You see this?" one of them shouted at the crowd, and the assembled people quieted and turned to face her.

"This is a copy of our nation's Constitution!" she continued, waving it in the air. "What John A. Pence advocates is nothing less than the destruction of the principle that all men are created equal that is written into the system that governs us. That statement includes monsters, in my eyes, and with this ignoring of basic principles the United States is based on, the Patriots perpetrate the destruction of our country!"

She held aloft the Constitution. One of the monsters with her flipped the top off of a lighter and held the flame to the piece of paper, and the crowd began to cheer as the copy of the Constitution caught on fire.

"Is this... normal for a rally?" Asriel asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Sort of." Undyne replied. "I mean, nobody was burning the Constitution or anything in San Francisco, but they were getting pretty wild and might have started smashing things if it didn't start to rain."

"Speaking of which..." Asriel pointed at the sky, which was growing noticeably darker.

"We'll just have to hope we don't get rained out." Frisk shrugged. "Besides, I doubt they'll get that violent."

Somebody procured an American flag, and the protesters with the lighter set it ablaze, too. Raucous cheering could be heard.

"Yeah, they'll just keep burning things until the cops show up. Great plan." Asriel said sarcastically.

"C-come on, this kind of stuff is, uh, pretty common in demonstrations like this." Alphys pointed out.

A distant yet familiar sound filled the air, growing louder as it approached.

A sound that Frisk had heard not too long ago, soon after Caleb had killed a Patriot supporter.

 _The sound of sirens._

"U-Undyne, is it just me or does that sound like sirens?" Alphys stuttered.

Undyne narrowed her eye. "Police coming to mess up everything again."

"Undyne, _you_ are a police officer." Frisk raised an eyebrow.

"So what?" Undyne shrugged.

A police car rounded the corner, sirens blaring, followed by three others. One of the doors opened, and a police officer stepped out. "Okay, folks, you're becoming a disturbance to the local peace." he called out. "Disperse peacefully now."

"Screw the police!" somebody shouted, throwing a rock at the car. "We have a right to public protest, especially against those Patriot bastards!"

Frisk would later identify this as the moment when everything went wrong.

Grinding his teeth, the officer turned back to the other officers. They seemed to hold a silent conference for a moment before he turned back around.

He didn't say anything, but made a hand signal to the cops behind him.

Gas gushed forth towards the crowd.

"Tear gas!" somebody shouted, before doubling over in a coughing fit.

"We need to get out of here, now." Undyne snapped, clicking a button to unlock her car. "Before this gets even uglier."

The rain suddenly began to pour down as Frisk opened the door, and Asriel jumped in behind her and slammed the door.

The crowd began to disperse, but a group of protesters charged at the police cars.

A gunshot rang out. Screams rang through the air.

"That's it, we're getting out of here, now!" Undyne slammed on the accelerator and swerved into a side road.

More gunshots echoed from the road behind them, quickly fading into the distance, as did the screaming of the injured.


	14. Respite

**A/N: You may or may not have noticed, but I've decided to add the series title to the story in order to help with organization. Make of it what you will.**

The drive home was a subdued one, with little to no conversation between the occupants. Given the events which had recently happened, this was understandable.

 _There isn't really anything we can do, is there?_ Frisk slumped down in her seat, filled with apathy. The concept of determination, at this point, seemed a totally foreign one to her.

She started to speak, to tell everybody not to tell anyone that they had been at the rally, but then remembered how she had explicitly posted on the website that she and Asriel would be at the rally and slumped with a defeated groan. _And our support will probably drop even more after this, given the fiasco that it developed into._

It wouldn't hurt if she took a quick nap, would it? Frisk knew it was still at least fifteen minutes back to Alta Nevada, and that should be enough time. Asriel was looking a little tired as well, so she wasn't the only one worn out by the rally.

Just a few minutes' rest wouldn't do any harm...

Frisk was jolted awake by the car abruptly braking. Undyne swore loudly. "Get a license, Grandpa!" she shouted out the window, and received an explicit response for her trouble.

Shaking her head, Frisk turned to Asriel. He had slumped over in his seat, floppy ears dangling over the area between them. He was clearly in a deep enough sleep to have not noticed the near-car accident which had just occurred. Smiling slightly, she pushed her brother upright in his seat, but it was barely half a minute before he was in the same position.

"What's that?" Undyne frowned, looking up ahead. "If I didn't know any better I'd say that there was a blockade at the entrance to town..."

As Alta Nevada's rugged, low-slung buildings grew nearer, Frisk realized that it wasn't a blockade, although there was a police car at the entrance to the town, along with some weak barricades.

"I've got a bad feeling about this..." Undyne narrowed her eyes. "You two nerds get down on the floor of the car out of site of the windows."

Frisk unbuckled her seat belt and turned to Asriel. Shaking him gently, she said, "Wake up, Azzy."

Asriel was awake in almost an instant. "Huh? What? What's going on?"

Frisk sighed and rolled her eyes. "And yet you slept through Undyne almost getting us in a car crash."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. There's some kind of police thing at the entrance to the town, and Undyne says we should get on the floor of the car just in case."

"Well, we were involved in instigating an anti-Patriot rally." Asriel said wryly. "Can't understand why the police might hate us."

He crouched down next to Frisk on the car floor as it rolled into motion again.

"You know, I only just realized this," Frisk whispered to her brother, "but it's two days until the second anniversary of monsters leaving the Underground."

"Heh." Asriel smiled sadly. "Two years since we left the Underground. Feels strange to be able to talk about it so casually, with no fear of being forced back there in the near future..."

"Quiet, you two!" Undyne snapped.

The car slowed down, and the noise of the window rolling down could be heard. "Hello!" Frisk heard Undyne's voice become bright and happy.

"I'd like to see some kind of identification from both of you, please." a nasal voice said.

"W-would a driver's license do?" Alphys stuttered.

"Sure, lady, just give me something I can use to verify who you are." Frisk could hear Undyne's wallet flipping open.

After a tense few minutes, the nasal voice said, "Alright, you two can pass through."

"Why the need for the extra security?" Undyne asked.

"You heard about the protest in Sacramento, right? A few minutes after the crowd finally cleared up, somebody detonated a bomb in front of the state Capitol. Blew most of the front to smithereens. We're just trying to keep everyone safe, since this is one of the largest monster communities in the world."

"Y-you think the bomb was directed to...to hurt monsters?"

"I don't know, lady, I'm just going off of what I've heard. Now can you go through into the town now?"

The car picked up speed, and after a moment Undyne said, "Alright, you can get back into your seats."

Both children complied, and Frisk fastened her seat belt with shaking fingers. "Someone blew up a bomb in front of the Capitol..."

"If we'd stayed there longer, we could've been caught in the explosion." Asriel seemed almost as scared as his sister was.

"But what if the bomb was purposely detonated after the protest cleared up, kind of to add onto it?" Undyne pointed out.

"What makes you think _that_ was the motive?" Asriel raised an eyebrow.

Undyne was silent, and Alphys filled in the answer for her: "We saw something similar in an anime."

"Ah." Frisk nodded.

"And there's your house." Undyne pointed. "You want me to drop you off?"

"What time is it?" Asriel asked, and answered his question a moment later by checking his watch. "2:09. We really spent that much time getting there and getting back?"

"I know, it felt like a lot less." Frisk nodded. "Sure, we'll get out here. Thanks for the ride, Undyne."

"No problem!" Undyne responded, but they could all tell that her enthusiasm was strained. "See you two later!"

Frisk and Asriel got out of the car, and it roared away down the road.

"Uh, Frisk?" Asriel asked. "School doesn't let out for half an hour. How are we going to explain this to Mom?"

"By telling the truth and nothing else." came a voice from behind them, and both teenagers whipped around.

Toriel was standing there, arms folded across her chest.

She was not happy.

"And now you will explain why you found it necessary to skip school to organize a political rally."

 **A/N: Sorry if this chapter seemed somewhat short, but I'm planning an extra-long chapter to post as a Christmas present. I'll try to make up for the wait with some updates on Reset 927.**


	15. Here We Are

**A/N: I know I promised to put this chapter out as a Christmas present, but... life got away from me, and I didn't have any time to do much work on this. So... sorry about that.**

 **As for the actual chapter itself, well, we're going to be turning to somebody who has never been a viewpoint character before and who you may or may not have thought to be dead.**

The area which had once been the barrier separating the monster world from the human world stood resolute before him, the gaping hole that had once housed the object reviled by an entire species. The wind was howling.

Caleb shivered and drew his red hoodie more tightly around himself. This was largely useless, since it was already zipped. _Am I really ready for this?_ he wondered, and a moment later, _Who am I kidding? I don't have a choice if I want to stay away from the admittedly justified pursuit of this place's law enforcement._

He stepped forward into the dark void. Idly he wondered how long it would take for his mother to hear the news about what he'd done and realize that he was gone, or if she even would without prompting. His father's death had changed her greatly, and she had never been ashamed of the change nor what it had done to her. Sure, it had been fun for the first few months after recovering from his father's death to do whatever he wanted without her objection, but once he realized that the responsibility lay on _him_ to make sure that his mother didn't forget to take her medication or even such simple tasks as making food for herself...

It had probably contributed to Caleb's change.

Where his mother had retreated to reliance on alcohol and television, he had done something very different.

He had decided to withdraw all emotion and try to portray himself as a likable, cheerful person, on the logic that if he didn't seem to be bothered by anything bad that happened to him people wouldn't waste their worthless pity on him.

The only thing Caleb hated more than being ignored was pity.

And the plan had worked, somewhat. People had left him alone for the most part, and his friends had all drifted away by middle school.

Caleb was fine with this. He didn't care. He didn't need friends...

Or he had thought he hadn't.

But on that July day when he met Frisk and Asriel, he had felt something that he hadn't in a long time. He didn't know if there was a word for it. The best way he could describe it was as a feeling of having finally met people who were on the same level as he was, that he could quietly ventilate some of his pent-up stress and depression onto without them minding, the kind of people he would actually want to be friends with, unlike those annoying kids from his days in elementary school.

It was almost unfamiliar to him.

They had met quite by accident, Caleb remembered as he walked down a gray brick hallway. Turning to the left, he found himself in a bright amber room with golden flowers growing over everything. An old red trident-like weapon, covered in dust and bent at close to a 90-degree-angle, lay in the corner.

Sitting next to the trident, Caleb let himself drift back briefly to that day...

* * *

I wonder what would happen if I killed myself, _Caleb idly wondered. The thought had become more and more present in his mind in the time since his father's death. No matter how much he tried to bat it aside, it was always there, lurking, an omniscient shadow taking refuge in the dark corners of his brain. He wondered what it was like to die, if your life flashed before you briefly like people claimed or if it was simply a comforting tide of blackness rushing forward over you._

 _Caleb was standing by himself in the park leaning against a tree. Despite the heat of the day, he didn't take his hoodie off, preferring merely to leave it unzipped. It was one of the few things he had left of his father, after all, and he didn't want to leave it behind him no matter what. At least it fit properly now._

 _He heard somebody laughing, and envy surged through him._ I wish I remembered what it was like to "have fun." _He couldn't remember the last time he'd done something he'd taken pleasure in. There was his alternate history, of course, but that never brought him pleasure. Just satisfaction in a job well done, and somehow it wasn't the same._

 _"Come on, Asriel!" a playfully-annoyed voice sounded._

 _"Oof! Haha! Seriously?"_

Asriel... _He felt like he should remember the name, but he couldn't remember where from._

 _The wind began blowing, providing some cool relief to the heat._ At least it isn't humid.

 _And then there was a plop besides him, and he jerked his head to the side to see a girl about his age falling onto the ground._

 _Well, even if he had grown apathetic about life, his dad_ had _taught him to be chivalrous. "Need a hand?" he asked._

 _"No, I got it." The girl straightened herself and blew a piece of stray hair from over her eyes. "Thanks for offering, though."_

 _"Frisk, are you okay?" A monster clad in a green hoodie rounded the corner. He looked vaguely like a goat, and Caleb couldn't help feeling like he'd seen this monster before._

 _"Yeah, I'm fine." Frisk nodded._

 _Caleb squinted. "Ya know, call me crazy, but I feel like I've seen you two somewhere before."_

 _For some reason, both Frisk and the monster started laughing._

 _"I don't understand what's so funny..." Caleb was confused._

 _The monster managed to recover from his laughter long enough to state, "We've been on the news and about fifty other channels for the past six months or so. Maybe_ that's _where you saw us?"_

 _Caleb shook his head. "No, I don't watch television."_

 _The monster started laughing again._

 _"I'm serious!" Caleb said, feeling slightly annoyed. "I haven't watched TV since I was ten or so."_

 _"How come?" Frisk asked._

 _Sighing, Caleb turned away. "It's a personal matter. I'd rather not discuss it."_

 _"Oh, sorry!"_

 _Caleb shrugged. "It's fine. You're the first person in years who's apologized sincerely to me, anyway, so that automatically eliminates any resentment."_

 _The monster turned to Frisk. "Hey, Frisk, you think we should bring him with us to Grillby's?"_

 _"Sure." Frisk turned to Caleb. "You want to come?"_

 _Caleb feigned an exaggerated sigh. "Well, if you insist, I'll pry myself away from my depressed existential musings to come with you..."_

* * *

"Good times." Caleb wiped the memory away and got up. _Gotta keep moving. Police will check the entrances first if they do check down here._

He left the palatial surroundings quickly and continued walking. He had drifted so deeply into his depressed musings that he didn't even realize where he was until he walked into the wall.

"Welp, it's official, I'm an idiot." Caleb slapped his forehead with his palm, which didn't help. "Ow. Damn."

He was standing in a majestic amber hall. Light leaked in through stained-glass windows.

"This is pretty nice." Caleb couldn't help but feel as if he'd been here before, although he didn't know why.

He leaned against one of the pillars and heaved out a sigh. "Isn't this a fine goddamn mess I've got myself in." he said sarcastically. "I tried to stand up for a friend and ended up a fugitive from justice and a murderer. Just what I wanted when I started off this day."

The light beamed coldly, giving him no response.

And Caleb expected none.

* * *

It was some time later, and Caleb was hungry.

He had made reasonable progress so far. After exiting the palace, he had come to a steampunk-like area which he inferred was some kind of power generator. It had been collapsing with various walkways falling into the void below, and seeing as he didn't wish to follow them, he had taken explicit care to avoid faulty-looking areas.

Now he had just left that behind and was standing behind some kind of building. It was overgrown with various plants and seemed abandoned.

Walking inside through the back door, Caleb ducked under a hanging vine and stopped in front of a collapsed fountain. The fountain appeared to be shaped like a peeing microwave, and he idly wondered what kind of messed-up person had put it there in the first place.

Turning a full 360 to survey the place, Caleb noticed a set of double doors with a sign above them. It was falling apart, but Caleb managed to make out part of the sign: "Burger Empor..."

"I'm guessing that's supposed to say Burger Emperor?" Caleb tilted his head. "Well, I guess it's about time someone made a blatant knockoff of Burger King, although they probably didn't know they were." He confidently strode in through the double doors.

The interior was even more dilapidated than the rest of the place. Somehow, there was an unopened package of potato chips lying in the corner, although Caleb didn't recognize the brand. He opened the bag and sniffed to check if the chips were stale. Amazingly, they weren't, and he pulled out a chip and took an experimental bite.

He didn't recognize the flavor, but they were good nonetheless. As he finished the bag, a refreshing sense of vitality stole over him.

 _Must be monster food. Isn't it supposed to never go bad or something?_ He decided that it didn't matter and began opening drawers.

Caleb only found a piece of meat shaped like a sword in an old refrigerator, which, like the chips, hadn't gone bad in all this time. He decided to save it for later in case he couldn't find any more food and headed past the microwave fountain for the door.

An old, yellowed piece of paper was lying on the ground outside the door, and more out of curiosity than anything he picked it up. He couldn't make out anything from it, though, asides from a few letters.

As he was setting it back down, he saw a flash of metal off in the alley to the right of the building. Hesitantly Caleb approached the alley and found what had obviously once been some kind of probably illegal store. The glint of metal had come from an old antique revolver that had been jammed in the back.

After about a minute, Caleb managed to pry the revolver free. "This thing better have been worth it with all that effort." he muttered, and pointing the revolver at nothing in particular pulled the trigger.

A beam of light spat forth from the barrel and smashed into the wall, leaving a scorch mark.

Caleb's eyes widened. _Holy crap. I had no idea monster weapons were that powerful._ Hesitantly he stuffed the gun in his pocket, but on second thought he figured he'd be better off keeping it where he could see it.

 _There's still so much ahead of me to get through. I can't be distracted._ Caleb forged on.

* * *

Three hours later, it was official:

Caleb hated lava.

It wasn't that he'd almost fallen into it several times on his travels, oh no. (And why weren't there any freaking handrails?) It was just that HE'D ALMOST FALLEN INTO IT SEVERAL TIMES, SERIOUSLY, WHY DIDN'T THE MONSTERS MAKE ANY SAFETY RAILS OR COVER UP THE LAVA, HOW DID THEY LIVE HERE?

He was standing behind a great metallic edifice that loomed far above him. Judging from context clues such as the three gigantic letters on its side, he thought it was safe to assume that it was some kind of lab.

The door slid open at his approach. Caleb pointed the revolver ahead of him as he walked; better safe than sorry.

Fumbling his hand along the wall, Caleb found a switch and flicked it. The lights flickered on suddenly, drowning the room in light. Caleb felt trapped, like he was some kind of lab rat ready to be experimented on.

And then a voice spoke from the shadows.

"Hello."

Caleb whipped around, finger tightening on the trigger. "Who said that?"

"Just... someone who's been lost and forgotten for quite some time."

"I don't know who you are, or what you are, but I don't want to hurt you, so don't get near me." Despite his facade, Caleb felt uneasy. And... some other emotion he couldn't identify, one that left him as quickly as it appeared as if it was leaching into the fabric of the universe.

"Ha... You can't hurt me. In this timeline, I am beyond being hurt. And even putting that aside, I don't wish to cause you any harm. You're quite an interesting person, Caleb, as I have seen when I have watched you."

Tilting his head to one side, Caleb asked, "How do you know my name?"

"That's for another time." The voice became quieter. "You do not deserve to be forced to take refuge here. What you do deserve, though, is answers to what is going on, and I will give them to you."

"Okay..." Caleb frowned. "What's the catch?"

"There isn't one."

This was becoming much more suspicious. "Really?"

A dark chuckle. "It isn't like I have anything better to do."

"Okay, then, who are you?"

"A good question. For another time."

Silence filled the room.

"What do you know about how the Barrier was broken?" the voice asked at last.

"Not much," Caleb replied. "Just that it required the power of human souls, and I know next to nothing about that considering that a resolution allowing magical education in schools was struck down by the Supreme Court a few months back. Damn conservatives. I wanted to shoot laser beams out of my fingers."

The laughter was genuine this time. "And what do you know about Frisk and Asriel's role in the breaking of the Barrier?"

Caleb shrugged. "Diddly-squat. I asked Frisk once, but she was evasive and mumbled something about souls. Asriel just said that he'd rather not talk about it."

"Allow me to make things more clear, then, and tell you exactly what happened." the voice replied. "The barrier required a power equal to seven human souls to be broken. The king... Asgore Dreemurr... determined that the simplest means of doing this would be collecting the souls of children who fell down. Six had been collected before Frisk fell down. Her soul was much more powerful than that of the other children who had fallen into the Underground before her, and as a result she was able to rewind time, undo what she wished to not have been done."

"That's scientifically impossible," Caleb started, but then shrugged and waved a hand. "Eh, I guess it'd just be explained away with magic. Go on with your story."

"In the original timeline, she died trying to cross the barrier, and so went back to try to make things better. She did manage to set monsters free, but she couldn't save Asriel."

"Why not?"

"He had been trapped at that point in a soulless existence, a creature without compassion."

"I'm seeing a lot of plot holes here," interrupted Caleb, "but I guess you can go and fill those in later. Continue."

"Frisk couldn't stand leaving him behind and used her power to reset the timeline and take it back to the beginning to try and save Asriel. And then she did it again. And again. And again. Until she had gone back over nine hundred times." The voice paused. "At this point, out of frustration... well, suffice to say she snapped and started killing everything. Eventually, she took the soul of a monster named Sans before resetting everything one last time."

"I dunno," Caleb shook his head. "Frisk doesn't seem like the kind of person who would start killing people and take their souls. Plus, the barrier was broken... what, almost two years ago? Frisk was twelve then, and I don't see a twelve-year-old, let alone _Frisk_ as a twelve-year-old, doing that kind of thing. So what happened to her conscience? Did it fall into a plot hole or something?"

"..."

"Sorry, I interrupted again. Continue."

The voice took a breath before pressing on. "Eventually, she did manage to save Asriel and break the barrier with... the help of another child who had fallen before, Chara. Their soul had latched on to hers the second she fell into the underground and had been aiding her throughout her journey. Chara managed to retrieve Asriel's original soul and restore him to how he used to be at the cost of their own destruction."

"Ouch." Caleb winced. "So is the story over yet?"

"...Yes." the voice replied.

"Any other advice to give me, random voice?"

There was more silence.

And then, "Stay in the Underground for now, Caleb. You can survive down here alone for some time. Return to the surface in about two weeks. Your friends will need you."

"Me?" Caleb forced a laugh. "Why do they need me? I'm just some random depressed teenager. The only reasons I'm their friend is because I was in the right place at the right time. And even then, if I hadn't offered to help Frisk up that day, neither of them would have noticed me."

"Give yourself some credit." the voice replied. "You're more than just what you claim, and you are well aware of it. Use your time down here wisely and look through this laboratory. Find the research in here on human souls. You will need it later."

The silence returned.

"Wait!" Caleb called out. "Before you leave, I have a question for you."

"Go ahead..." the voice said, a certain uneasy note in its voice.

"Have we met before?" Caleb asked.

There was a pause, and then, "Not in this timeline. But we will meet again, later. Then, I think, my 'help' will be more welcome."

And then the voice, whoever they were, was gone, and Caleb had never felt more alone in his life.

"Did I imagine that?" he wondered, and then, "Doesn't matter much, does it? I should probably do at least some research on souls while I'm down here, anyway."

He let out another forced laugh. Slumped there on the floor, having had a civilized conversation with a disembodied voice which had assigned him some task he wasn't even sure how to complete...

 _I've only felt this once before._

 _And now..._

He rose to his feet.

 _And now..._

Yet, he couldn't quite finish the thought in his mind, and paused to gather his thoughts.

 _And now..._

 _Now, it isn't like I have anything else better to do than this. And besides that, I don't have much of a choice, do I?_


	16. Your Best Friend

**A/N: Welp, happy New Year, y'all.**

 **To clear up some confusion over the circumstances surrounding Sans's death, I will elaborate. Sans is really dead. He didn't do some magical memetic disappearing act. He was just hit by a car by chance and died. He is not coming back. I killed him off partially for plot reasons and partially to emphasize the chaotic nature of this world and drive home the point that bad things will happen in a world where Frisk cannot reset.**

"Grounded." Asriel let out a harsh sigh. "After we go and protest for monster rights, we get _grounded_."

"It's only for a week." Frisk replied. "Mom could've been harsher, considering somebody detonated a bomb in front of where we'd been minutes after we left."

Asriel threw up his hands in frustration. "But we're stuck in our room on Freedom Day."

"So?"

"So there's not going to be another October 20th until next year!" Asriel didn't seem to be able to comprehend that his sister wasn't infuriated by the circumstances they were in.

"Why bother being mad about this?" Frisk shrugged. "It's all in the past and can't be changed."

Letting out a barely-suppressed growl, Asriel stuffed his hands inside his hoodie pockets and slumped backwards on his bed.

Frisk felt slightly weak and detached, as though she was observing everything impartially from a distance. She wondered distractedly if they had done anything to change the Patriot onslaught or if it had been all for nothing, and decided that it was probably the latter, given how much the world seemed to hate her.

 _Still,_ she thought uncomfortably. _Election Day is November 8th. Nineteen days until the president is decided. Realistically, the Patriots will only carry a few states, but I can't help but feel that it might be worse than that._

"One thing's for certain," Asriel sighed, turning around. "We're not going to be able to do anything else like that. Mom will be watching us like a hawk from now on, and even if we asked permission I seriously doubt that she'd let us."

The room was silent.

Frisk dug around in her hoodie pocket and found her cell phone. She took it out and turned it on.

"What're you doing?" Asriel asked.

Frisk sighed as she tapped her thumb against the screen. "Checking something... I hope I'm wrong about this."

"About what?"

Sighing in disbelief, Frisk passed her phone to Asriel.

"What-" Asriel started, and then he was silent.

As monsters around the world rejoiced the day of their freedom, John A. Pence promoted the antithesis of what this day meant. In a speech in his home state, Pence had stated that any monsters who had ever hurt humans or spread anti-human propaganda must be forced back underground. He had concluded his speech with a dark, "And those who do not consent to be sent back where they belong will be freed from this world entirely." The audience around him at this point had burst into wild cheers which had lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour.

Asriel couldn't say anything, and with a depressed sigh he slumped sideways on the bed.

 _He'll alienate half the voting population with that speech, and I suppose that's the silver lining._ Frisk thought.

Outside, the celebrations continued. Yet Frisk felt nothing. Not joy at the second anniversary of monsterkind's from, not even the slightest happiness.

She felt nothing.

* * *

 _She was standing there where she had been so many times before._

 _The throne room._

 _Floor covered in a thick layer of floral vegetation._

 _A figure in a purple cape standing in the middle of the room, back to her, horns protruding above his head._

 _There was something off about him, but Frisk didn't stop to ponder. As if in a trance, her legs carried her forwards._

 _"Just a moment! I need to finish watering these flowers!"_

 _Something was different._

 _"Howdy! I-" He backed away, face contorted in an expression of horror._

No, no, no, no! _Frisk screamed silently._ This can't be happening! This can't be real!

 _"..." He was silent._

 _He stood there, resolute before her, clad in a simple purple robe with the Delta Rune on it, purple cape flowing from his shoulders. His green eyes were still widened in shock._

 _"You know who I am. King Asriel Dreemurr. Ruler of monsters... or what's left of them, anyway..."_

 _Asriel chuckled, glaring at her._

 _"But you know why that is. You've been corrupted against us, just like all of them. Because of you humans, my mother, father, sister, all of my friends..."_

 _"They're all dead."_

 _"So... I won't show you any remorse. I won't show you any pity."_

 _"Human... I will make this quick."_

 _And then with a slicing movement, he whipped a red sword from its sheath on his hip, then swiveled it forward and plunged it into her chest._

* * *

"We know who the bomber is."

Frisk turned around at the snide, cutting voice. Three seniors stood behind her, each prominently sporting a shirt with the double-headed eagle Patriot insignia.

"We know who the bomber is." repeated the senior, clearly enjoying this moment.

Frisk crossed her arms. "Enlighten me, then, as to their identity." Her voice was cold.

Spiteful laughter swept through Frisk. "Acting like she doesn't know, sitting there with her arms crossed."

"Are you going to tell me, or just sit there gloating over your marginal knowledge?" Frisk's voice was emotionless.

"Stop pretending like you don't know!" the senior snapped. "The bomber is Prince Asriel Dreemurr, that stupid monster you call your brother."

The inherent idiocy of this claim felt like a lightning bolt through Frisk's body. The senior seized on her inaction and continued, "Your pathetic 'brother,' thinking he can avenge his even more pathetic father by becoming a petty terrorist..."

Frisk snapped. She never could remember quite what happened, in later times. All she remembered was the senior picking himself up off the floor, holding his bloody nose. "Those monsters've corrupted you good against your own species, haven't they?" He held out a hand mockingly. "There is still good in you, Frisk. You can still escape them!"

Swearing loudly at him, Frisk swung her fist at his face. He barely dodged, and it smashed into the locker next to her instead, leaving a sizeable dent. Strangely, Frisk felt no pain.

"You better be careful," the senior grinned mockingly. "Else you might end up in a ditch like your pal Caleb."

"Better to be dead in a ditch than to live near a useless waste of space like you and your Patriot pals." Frisk spat back.

"We'll see if you're singing the same tune in twelve days when John A. Pence wins in a landslide." Chortling, the senior walked away.

* * *

"November 4th."

Frisk still felt cold and unfeeling.

"Four days until the election, and humanity's savior becomes the president of our glorious nation."

She had felt this before.

"Then, the satanic monstrosities which have plagued our world for two years will at last be driven back underground where they belong, and Earth shall be pure again!"

Asriel gently clicked the remote, and the television turned off. "You should stop depressing yourself, Frisk. It's not like the Patriots can take over the country, and even if they do, well." He sadly smiled. "At least you'll be spared the bigotry and prejudice."

Frisk snorted. "You know that I consider myself a monster by adoption. You think I'm going to just sit there and take it?"

Asriel had no response to this, mainly because he knew what his sister said was true.

"Besides," Frisk continued, "I can't let anyone else I care about die... especially you, Asriel." she added. "I'm determined to not let this be the end."

Suddenly Asriel was whisked back many months to a moment very much like this...

 _Asgore had refused to allow his son and Frisk to come with him, and Toriel had refused to go with him. Despite that she'd forgiven him for what he'd done, and despite the several attempts at reconciliation from Asgore, there was very little indication that they would ever get back together._

 _The children had been allowed to watch the king of monsters on television, or at least what was shown. Frisk and Asriel had watched him stride confidently up the great stone steps..._

 _And then a gunshot had rang out in the air. Asgore had just enough time to look confused before crumbling to dust._

 _Sans's death had been bad enough, but a clear assassination had been much more, Toriel barely let her children out of her sight for days afterward, and Frisk had clung to Asriel. Her mood had often swung violently back and forth from protective to panicky and back again, and she often had nightmares about everyone dying in front of her for months afterwards._

Looking over at Frisk, Asriel realized that she was remembering the same events as he was.

There was nothing to be said or done. But here, in one of the last pockets of sanity in a world overtaken by hate and prejudice, they could try to pretend that everything was alright with the world.

 **A/N: The next chapter may be a little long in coming out. This is because I'm going to be scientifically attempting to determine who would win the election in real life instead of just making who I want to win prevail. For those of you who wish to know how I will be calculating it, please PM me. I'll be happy to explain my methods.**

 **The next chapter will include an account of Election Day in this world. Keep in mind that since this is an alternate universe from our own where the monsters were freed in 2014, the butterfly effect has slightly changed the Democratic and Republican tickets (the far-right antics of the Patriots have alienated some candidates) although they're not a great deal different from our timeline.**


	17. But Nobody Came

**A/N: So, apparently the Anomaly series is good enough to now have a TvTropes page.** **Wow.**

 _Everything went dark._

 _And then, it was suddenly bright again._

 _Asriel stood next to her, a defeated, weary expression on his face. It was the expression of somebody who'd given up trying to change his life a long time ago, somebody who'd been beaten down to nothing by the world._

 _Next to him, Toriel closed her eyes. "Everything will be alright, Asriel." she said in a pained voice. "This cannot be how it ends."_

 _Everything around them was gray, dark, empty. Frisk tried to speak, but she couldn't._

 _Her body refused to move._

 _Incoherent shouts sounded in the distance, and then everything around them exploded._

* * *

With a gasping shudder, Frisk sat up in bed.

Turning, her eyes fell upon Asriel. He had not been woken by her, and a peaceful, tranquil smile had spread across his face.

 _It's amazing that he can sleep easy. Tomorrow... well, whatever happens, the elected official won't be supportive of monsters. Their prejudice just comes in various degrees, and Pence happens to have the most._

However hard she tried, Frisk could not fall back to sleep, plagued by increasingly catastrophic scenarios of the world that would be developed today by the choices of millions.

* * *

"And today the presidential election we have all been anticipating is here at last!"

Frisk and Asriel sat side by side on the couch, staring at the television. Their futures depended on this date.

"Today, it will be decided whether Hillary Clinton, John Kasich, or possibly John A. Pence win this election. Although polls have shown Kasich to be ahead, Pence's recent rapid-fire campaigning in California, Virginia, and Maryland may end up paying off."

The time was 3:00 PM. So far, Indiana had voted for Kasich, while Kentucky had swung Patriot.

"We have confirmation that-"

The television turned off, and the two looked up to see Toriel standing there with the remote in her hand. "You should not be depressing yourselves on a day that you have off from school." She set the remote down on the couchside table. "Why don't you two go to Grillby's?" she suggested.

"Okay." Never before had Toriel outright told them that they could go to that hive of grease and fire hazards, and even if she wanted to stay up to date on the election, it might be relaxing to get a break from the stress. "C'mon, Asriel." Frisk zipped up her hoodie as she headed out the door.

* * *

Despite spending an hour at Grillby's, during which Frisk ended up drinking an entire bottle of ketchup out of pure boredom, she couldn't drown the butterflies in her stomach no matter how much ketchup she consumed.

Her stomach churned. _What if Pence somehow wins? What will we do then? What...?_

She looked over at her brother. The innocent expression on his face as he chewed on a french fry was heartbreaking, and she vowed right there that, even if Pence was elected, she wouldn't let the Patriots tear her family apart. _I've come too far and sacrificed too much to let the idiocy of a few million people to change what I've worked for._

"Hey, Frisk?" Asriel asked, and Frisk flinched, hoping he didn't realize how long she'd been watching him. "Do you think we ought to get back home?"

Frisk shrugged. "I dunno. You want to go back?"

"Well... sure." Standing and shoving his stool back into place, Asriel tossed a couple of banknotes onto the bar. "Let's go."

* * *

Despite promising their mother to the contrary, the instant the two got to their room they booted up the computer to check the election so far.

The returns for many more states had come in. Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, and West Virginia had all shockingly swung into Pence's camp. Vermont had cast most of its votes with Clinton, and Ohio had voted for Kasich.

Frisk didn't realize she was shaking until Asriel wrapped his arms around her. "Everything'll be fine." he said soothingly. "Just because he's carried a majority of six out of nine states doesn't mean he'll win."

"I know, but..." Frisk trailed off and shook her head. "Let's not look at the polls again until after we've eaten something, okay? I'm not sure I'll be able to eat as is." She didn't need to explain why.

"I stand a lot more to lose than you do if the Patriots win," Asriel pointed out.

"Exactly why I hope this majority is temporary." Frisk replied.

* * *

True to her word, Frisk refused to look at the results as the day proceeded. Asriel, however, did not abstain, and although he respected her wishes and didn't tell her what any of the results were until around 5:00.

"I know you didn't want to be told any results, but something's come up..." Asriel stated as he sat next to Frisk on the couch. She was reading a book. "What's that?" he asked.

Frisk tilted it up so he could see the cover. "It's called _How Few Remain_. Caleb recommended it to me before... everything happened." She forced a weak smile. "It's actually pretty good, except one thing..."

"What?"

Frisk turned her head and whispered into his ear for a few moments. When she finished, Asriel frowned. "Who's Mark Twain? And..." He stopped as Frisk whispered to him some more, and the goat monster's eyes expanded to the size of dinner plates. "The author put THAT in this book?" he burst out. "WHY? How do people like this?"

"Well, asides from George Custer doing the same thing, it's the only audience-alienating scene in the book so far."

Asriel shook his head in disgust. "Anyway, what I came to talk to you was about New Mexico. The vote was so messed up for the Democrats there it looks like the Libertarians could actually manage to carry it."

"What?"

Asriel nodded. "Being the only state asides from Hawaii to legalize monster voting probably had something to do with it, considering that it looks like the state was only carried by under a thousand votes right now."

Frisk set down her book. "Weird part is, Gary Johnson's been less than lukewarm in his support of monsters. He's more concerned about getting weed legalized nationally and crap like that."

"Yeah, well, he's more supportive than any other candidate, major or minor party."

"...Thank you for telling me about this, Asriel," Frisk opened her book again, "but please, don't tell me any more about anything."

Toriel had experimented with dinner that night and tried a pie with blends of various meats (including, of course, snails) tonight. It was probably one of her finest culinary works yet, but Frisk barely tasted it. Yet she persevered anyway, as she didn't want to upset Toriel.

Asriel didn't appear to have the same difficulties eating as Frisk did, considering that he was eating like a starved animal. Then again, this may have been since it was 6:00 and he wanted to see who had won the next batch of states.

Despite whatever his desires may have been, it wasn't until seventeen minutes later that Toriel allowed them to turn on the television and see who had won. It had just come on in the middle of an interview with one of the voters.

"-contribute to Texas's overwhelming vote to swing the state into the emerging 'Patriot belt,' as it is being called?"

"I sure did." responded a man with a tobacco-stained white mustache. "i couldn't very well not vote for John A. Pence, could I?"

"Would you care to elaborate?" asked the reporter.

"Look, monsters are atrocities and abominations. All it is is common sense. It's in their name, for God's sake. They've been taking jobs away from good, honest people and giving the ***bleep*** liberals even more fuel to pump their crooked legislation through since they were released. I, for one, if Pence does not win this election, will call for recounts in all states in which the Patriots 'lost' by a small amount, and I'm sure I won't be the only one. Monsters're already taking over the country in every other way, who's to say they won't stoop as low as to interfere with our honest ballots?"

"As goes without saying," stated the anchorman as the camera cut back to him, "this gentleman's opinion is not a unique one. So far, a stretch of states from the Midwest through the South to as far north as New Jersey have all thrown their support to the Patriot cause."

As the television continued to drone on, Frisk sighed heavily and swore. Luckily for her, Toriel was upstairs. "I can't believe this..."

"Look, Pence is too far away from 270 electoral votes at this point." Asriel put an arm around her shoulders. "Unless he carries California- which'll be practically impossible considering how right-wing he is- he can't win."

"I hope you're right." Frisk replied.

"Americans might be stupid at times, sure," Asriel continued, desperately trying to fill the silence with reassurance in hopes that Frisk would stop looking so depressed, "but they're not stupid enough to elect a megalomaniac like _Pence_ , of all people, into office. Sure, there'll be a sizable amount of racists who cast their ballots for him, but-"

Frisk held up a hand. "Please. Stop." Her voice cracked. "Just... stop."

Asriel obeyed and slumped back against the couch. If _Frisk_ , of all people, the person who had done over nine hundred resets just to save him, was losing hope now, then that was bad.

 _Understatement of the century,_ he chided himself. _Well, at least once Clinton or somebody carries our state instead of Pence she'll see there's nothing to worry about._

The television clicked off in the middle of reports on DC, and Asriel turned to see Frisk drop the remote control by her side. "I've had enough." she said in a quavering voice. "I'm going up to my room." She trudged out the hallway and up the stairs. Asriel could hear her footsteps as she made her way to their room, then the door as it slammed.

Asriel considered turning the TV back on- the results for California would probably be the deciding factor of this election- but it took barely any thought before he followed his sister. _I'd be a bad brother if I didn't,_ he thought as he headed up the stairs. _And besides that... Eh,_ that _doesn't matter right now._

Hesitating outside the closed door, Asriel gently rapped its wooden surface.

But nobody came.

Asriel knocked again, louder this time.

If Frisk had heard him either time, she gave no response. Asriel couldn't hear any sound from inside.

 _Well, if she wants to be left alone... I'll let her be. I understand how she feels._ Turning away from the door, Asriel left it there, the brass doorknob dimly glittering in the hall light.

* * *

It was the day after.

Frisk's eyes snapped open.

 _I... I can't..._

Yet despite her brain's conflicting opinions, she forced herself upright anyway and turned to Asriel's bed. The covers were rumpled, but her brother was nowhere to be seen.

 _Hopefully he's downstairs._

Then she remembered.

 _Right... the election. Last night._ Her thoughts came slowly and disjointed. _I wonder if Pence managed to carry enough states without California... No. He couldn't have._

She didn't bother to get dressed, even though she didn't have off school today. She wondered why, hazily, and it took a few moments for her to realize that it was around five in the morning.

 _I wonder if I'm in shock,_ she thought, and then, _No. There wasn't anything for me to be in shock from..._

Her thoughts were coming more clearly now as she opened the door with a creak. "Asriel, are you awake?" she called softly.

No response.

Frisk stepped out into the hallway, bare feet treading a path down the stairs and into the kitchen. "Asriel?" she called again, a little more loudly.

Her brother was sitting at the kitchen table. Heavy bags hung under his eyes. He didn't have anything in front of him, and Frisk wondered vaguely what he had been doing before she came down.

"Asriel?" Frisk's voice was concerned.

When Asriel spoke, he sounded almost like a different person. "It's over," he rasped.

"What?" Frisk could barely hear herself. There was a roaring in her ears, blocking out almost every foreign sound.

"It's over." repeated Asriel, sorrow resonating in his voice. "I don't know how the hell he managed, but Pence managed to get California to go for him. In fact, he got everything west of the Rockies except Washington, Arizona, and Colorado."

"How...?"

"I don't know how." Asriel sounded as if he couldn't bear to make himself speak. "But he managed to get enough states to win. It's over."

"No..." Frisk couldn't hear herself breathing, and wondered vaguely if she even was at this point. "No! It can't be true! You're just playing a trick on me!"

"I wish I was." Asriel replied.

"No!" Grabbing the remote control, Frisk turned on the kitchen television.

It had been showing a map. The electoral map, to be precise. Frisk could only see a flash of the dark purple that was the Patriot color before it cut back to the typical news feed.

"Pence's remarkable victory is the first time in history that a minor-party candidate has won the presidency. The major parties' candidates are expected to make concession speeches soon."

That map, that hateful, detestable map flashed across the screen again. A swath of Patriot states stretched from Oregon and California east, bottlenecking at Wyoming before fanning out again in a strip from North Dakota to Texas that continued through all of the southern United States except Missouri, Tennessee, and Florida up into New Jersey.

"No..."

Yet however much she tried to deny it, the unthinkable had already happened. In a way, it had been almost predestined to happen since monsters emerged from the prison camp.

"No!"

It was over.

It was over, no matter how she attempted to deny it.

It was over.

* * *

 **A/N:** **For those of you wondering why Trump isn't the Republican nominee and Kasich is, let's be perfectly honest and put all of our conflicting feelings on him aside to analyze his political character: He'd sign up with the Patriots early on if they did exist, and don't try to tell me he wouldn't. As for why Kasich, well, he's right-wing enough for the Republicans, but not so far-right that he'd go off and join the Patriots.**

 **Please provide me with feedback on this chapter, because I honestly have NO IDEA how people will take this.**


	18. Burn in Despair

**A/N: I have two things to speak of.**

 **First, the issue of California, and more importantly how Pence carried it.**

 **As we have seen throughout history, racism tends to be more pronounced in the areas where a certain ethnic group has a large population. As I have stated before, being the area where Mount Ebott was, California has a lot more monsters than any other state. (In fact, the main reason Hawaii and New Mexico got away with giving monsters voting rights was because there weren't that many of them in those states.) Second, take a look at a recent map of which way the counties in the nation swing. More importantly, look at California. Despite tending to vote liberal, it has more conservative areas on it than you'd expect, and it wouldn't take too many people to pull it into a conservative victory. Third, monsters use _actual gold_ as their currency. Think of the effect that would have on the economy. More importantly, think about what that would do to _California's_ economy. You think the Californians are just going to stand there and take it?**

 **Finally, if I was technically going to be realistic I should have had every state except one or two vote for Pence. Look at human history. In general, we tend to not be too accepting of people different than us. I mean, look at the Holocaust. And that was to fellow humans. If it's that easy to stir up hatred against _other humans,_ then it's going to be relatively easy to create anti-monster sentiment throughout the nation.**

 **Those were deciding parts of California voting for the Patriots, but multiple other factors came into consideration, such as monster-caused unemployment estimates, overall national opinion, human and monster migration, and the aftermath of the assassination of King Asgore.**

 **I'll address the second issue at the bottom of the chapter where y'all will actually remember to add your thoughts on it in your review.**

* * *

Cold gray lockers loomed all around Frisk.

The hallway was silent.

 _I'm almost certainly going to get into trouble for skipping class,_ Frisk thought, and then, _Screw it. How can it matter now?_ _It's only been five days since Pence won, and already everyone's acting like he's the best thing that's ever happened to the country._

Frisk remembered a line from some play she'd read in English class at the beginning of the year.

 _'O brave new world, that has such people in it,' or something like that._ she remembered. _Regardless of how you think of the Patriots, that line applies, doesn't it?_

And then a voice spoke, echoing off the metal doors.

"Are you beginning to see the benefits of being part of the master race?"

Frisk ignored the voice. Her heart beat faster.

"Hey! Don't walk away from me! Get back here!"

She set one foot forward, and then the other. _Just keep moving and ignore them._

"Stop. Right. There."

Frisk stopped.

Slowly, she turned.

"Good. You can learn." the snide, cruel voice said.

Frisk bit down on her tongue to keep from saying something she'd probably regret later on.

"So." the senior continued, "now that the Patriots have won the election, do you see that as a human you cannot side with monsters? Can't you see that they're inferior to the master race of humanity?"

"You sound like a Nazi." Frisk noted scornfully.

The teenager looked insulted. "There's a difference between exterminating fellow humans and putting monsters down where they belong."

Frisk clapped slowly and sarcastically. "Well done with your explanations of race theory, _Ubermensch_ and _Untermensch_." _Thanks, Caleb,_ she thought. " _Der Führer_ would be proud of your service to the American Reich." Frisk did a purposely poor Nazi salute. "Heil Pence!"

"What?"

Frisk would have gone on to explain that the Patriots were practically Nazis by another name, but it was at this point when another voice shouted from behind her:

"Frisk Dreemurr!"

Frisk turned around.

An old lady in high heels stood there with an enraged look on her face.

Frisk swore mentally.

This was the vice-principal of Alta Nevada's high school, Mrs. Shelley, better known as "Click-Clack" by the sound of her ubiquitous high heels as she prowled the school.

One thing she was not fond of was students being "uppity." Frisk wasn't quite sure what that was supposed to mean, but she was guessing that, not knowing the context of the situation, the old bat would think that she'd just been trying to convert these kids to Nazism. And that, she was sure, would qualify as being "uppity."

"Did I just see you execute a Nazi salute?" Click-Clack growled with the voice of someone who's asking a rhetorical question.

"No." Frisk replied.

"Young lady, don't lie to me! I just saw you-"

"I was attempting to get my point across that the Patriot party has Nazistic beliefs." Frisk cut in.

"How dare you attempt to project the despicable actions of those people onto an innocent man who has done nothing wrong!" The vice-principal's face swelled with rage. "Monsters deserve everything they get!"

"Monsters are sentient beings with-"

"I don't want to hear any more backtalk from you, young lady!"

Frisk closed her eyes. Throughout the two years since monsters arrived on the surface, she'd encountered all kinds of racism towards them. Always, she'd been spared most of the bigotry because she was human.

 _Now, I'm not going to be silent anymore!_

"You're going to hear it anyway!" Frisk was filled with determination. "There's no excuse for racism, and I refuse to give respect to anyone who denies it to monsters!"

"How dare-"

"I'm not going to let this happen!" she continued. "Monsters aren't inferior to humans, and mankind has no right to oppress them!"

"Frisk, you're going down the same dangerous path as that Conrad boy." Click-Clack's nose wrinkled.

"Good!" Frisk replied, temporarily stunning the old woman. "If I'm forced from this place, I'll make sure to take a few Patriots with me!"

"I have had enough of this!" Click-Clack shouted. "You are going to be given detention for a week! And next time you pull something like this, it'll be suspension!"

* * *

"Et tu, Frisk?" Asriel waved cheerily at his sister as she stepped through the door. "What're you in for?"

"'Disrespect of authority figure' and 'championing of racist values.'" Frisk replied, handing her detention slip to the detention teacher and sitting down next to him. "What about you?"

Asriel nodded slyly, noticing the implied quotation marks. "'Threatening peers with malicious intent.'"

"What did you really _-_ "

"Quiet!" shouted the detention teacher before moving over to break up two scuffling juniors.

In a whisper, Frisk continued, "What did you really get put in here for?"

"Some sophomore decided I wasn't showing enough respect for my betters," Asriel whispered back, "so he walked into the main office and apparently told them I was threatening to throw a fireball at him and blast him through the window."

"I'm surprised they didn't try to suspend you."

"Eh, I guess we get some leeway with our status. What'd you get sent in for?"

Frisk quietly explained the incident to her brother. When she was finished, he looked adequately impressed. "Cool... but you shouldn't do that kind of thing in the future. You've only escaped bigotry because you're a human, and I doubt you want suspension."

Shrugging, Frisk replied, "If I'm suspended, it'll give me time to figure out how to protest the Pence regime."

"Good point." Asriel acknowledged. "Still, you should be careful." He looked at her now with an expression of concern. "Frisk, I'm worried about you."

"Why?" Frisk shrugged. "I've got a lot less to worry about than you. I'm a member of the 'master race,' after all." she continued bitterly. "I've escaped almost all of the anti-monster sentiment because of who I am."

"You don't... Never mind." Sighing, the goat monster crossed his arms and rested his head on them.

Frisk decided not to question him on the issue and turned to her backpack. _At least we're allowed to do our homework instead of just sitting here staring blankly at the walls._

Yet, one trig worksheet later, she couldn't shake off that feeling: _If I had done more than just go to that one rally in Sacramento... If I had tried to do more... Could I have had any effect on the Patriot landslide? It would only have taken one state for him to lose..._

 _But nothing can be done now. Now, it's too late to do anything. All we can do is hope that he won't be as extreme as he seems and..._

Frisk closed her eyes as she felt something in her fracture.

* * *

It seemed like an eternity before they were dismissed. Frisk and Asriel were not only the first out of the room but also the first out of the school.

The air was chilly, but not cold. _Typical for this area of California,_ Frisk contemplated.

A gentle breeze blew by, carrying leaves on its wings.

And then in the space of a few seconds, everything changed.

"Go!" someone shouted. "Put 'em in their place!"

Something hard struck Frisk in the back, and she reeled backward as black blurs rushed around her towards Asriel.

As her vision steadied, she was able to make out the shapes of five people. One of them held an iron bar in his hand, a spot of blood on it.

Wincing, Frisk reached for her back and felt a trickle of hot liquid there. Seeing her move, one of the gang members turned around to her, fists raised, but one of his comrades shouted, "Ignore her, she's human, get the goat freak!"

The five started towards Asriel. As Frisk tried to pull herself upright to try to help him, one of them struck him in the face. Crying out, he fell back onto the road, and they surged towards him.

 _Where's a passing car when you need one?_ Frisk thought desperately. She tried to stand, but dizziness overcame her and she collapsed onto her knees.

 _No! I can't afford to be weak now! Asriel needs me!_

The thought that she was the only one there who could stop this filled her with raw DETERMINATION.

* * *

0̡͏1҉͢01͟1̢0̴0͞1 ̴͟͠0͞1̷1́0̷0̧̢̛1̴̵͢0̡́1 0́1̧̡1̶͟͜1̴0̡̛͜01̴͜1̧͘ ͟͡0̡͡01͢͠0̢͜1̧͘1̨͜1͞0̵ ̴͢0͞0͟1̡́͠0̶͘͟0̧0͟0̕͢͞0̷̴ ̸̢́010̛̛0̵͞͏0̷͟0̷̷1̶1̢ 0̡̕1̡̢͞1̷01̸͘1̴̨͢1̸͘͞1̧ ̀͡01̨1̸̡0͏̀1̷̕1͟1̛͏̨0̧́͜ ̨̕͠01͡1̕1҉01̛̛͞0̷͢0 ̕0̶͝1̀͘1͠0͘͢͠1҉̴̡0̴0̢1͡ ͝͏͠0͜1͜҉̷1̵͜01̸͡1̵̧҉1̷͠0 ̕͜͡0̴͞1̸11̨0͢1̢0͞1 ̨̢0́͢11̵̀͢0̷̸0͟͜10҉́1̢ ̛̕͞00̨1͠0̧͜00͟0̴͘0 ̸̡0҉̸1҉̡1̴́͜1̵͡0͘̕1͠͏0́͜͡0̷̀ ͞0̶͟͜1͏1̛̀͞0̴̀͜1̧0͠0͏0̶̸ 0̡11͜͏0̢́̕1̸͡0͞0̵̷́1͢ ͜0̛͘͟1̸͞1̡̢̀1͝0̵̢͟0̵1̨͢1̡́ 0̨0͟͝1͠͝0̡͠11̸̀͞1͟0 0͏͞҉01̨́҉0҉͏00͢00͠ ̕͠0̧͝10̨́0̨͟0͠1̨̕0͘͏͝0̀͡ ̧̀0̛͢1͝1̛0̴0҉̡1͡01̴̛̀ 0͏͟111͠0̨̢͠0̢̨͟1̨̕͟1̨͏͟ ҉̷011͏̧͘1̨͠0̡͡100̵̀ 0̵͘1̧͏̛1̀1͟͞0̨̢01̀͞0̸̨ 0̴1̷̧̧1̢0̶͞1̡̨1̧̕͢1͠1 ҉̴́0̸͝1̷1͢1́͘1͜͟0̨͡0͘1͜͝ 0͢0̷͏̨10͟00̛͠0̸0̵͝ ̶͘01͢1̷1̢01̵1̴҉1̴̢͝ ̶̴0̶͜1͟͡1̨01̸͢͠0͏͏0̕0͠ ̶͞0̷̀11̀0̶͝0̴͠͡0̨͘0͝1͝͏ ̴̛0̵̧1̵͝1101͘͏̀0͝0͟ ̀͡0͞01͠0̀0͢͡0҉̸̢0̡0͏͟ ҉͡0̴1̶͜11̧͟͡1̀͜0̛0̢1̡ ̸͡͞0̢̕1͠1̶̨͠0̢1̕1̷1̷̨͏1 ̛0̧͝͝1́͏1̀̕͜1̴͡0͜1̵͢0҉1̡ ͏0̴͞0̛͞1͠͝0͏̶͠0̸0̀0̀́0̨͞ ̶͡01̀1͘͠1̕͝0́͞11̴̀1̴ ͠01̛1͟0̵̀1̡1̶́1̵1͏ ̶̢01̸11͠0̡̡0̸̸1̢҉̸0͟͜ ͜͠͞0̴̶͟1͞1010̵͟1̵̨͟1̧́ 0̸͜͞1̢͠1̢0҉̨0͡1̸̨0̨1 0̵͟1̵͟1͏00̀1҉0̢͟0͜ ̢0̸͢01҉̸̢00̷̧͟00҉͡0̕̕͡ ̸̧͡0̛1̵̵11̕0̵͞0̛̀1̡͢1̀ ͡01̕̕1̧͢͞0̕11͘͟͟1͏1̷̸ ̷̕0̸0҉͡͏1̴͞͡0̀͘0̧͠0͏͞0͏̴0̧͘ 0͡1͟101̨̧͏000̵ 0̕͡1͠1̸͜͜000̷̡0̷̵̕1̸ ̶0͡1̸͝1̨͞1̷0͜0͟1̸̢̨0͏̷ ͞0͞͞1̶҉̵1͢0̵̷0͟͞1̶͜͢00͝ ̵̷0҉01̢0̧0͡҉͢0̛͞0̵̕͡0 ̶̧0҉͟1̀1̢͡00͘1̡͞10̧̧ ͏̢̨0͏11̧01̛͡͡1̸̀͟1̵͘1 ̡0̨1͟1̨͘1͏́0͘0̧͝1̷̸0̴͝͞ ͠0͏̡̨0͘͘͡1͏0͡1͟1͞͞0͢0̡ ̶͘0̶̴̵0͘͞1̛00̴͝0́͝0̨̨͝0҉̷̕ ͞0̧͏1͘͡͠1͟0͝҉0̡0̸01̷̨ ҉͜0͟͢1̷1̀͘͢0̴1͠1͝1̛͜0̴͢ ҉͡01̡̀10̵01͏0͢0̛ ̵͠0́͡0͏1̢0̷͠0̵̡͘0͡͞00̸̀͟ ̀͝0̛͝1̛1̀00̛̛1͘͠͏1̧̀1̴̧͡ ̨͢0͢1҉10̴1̧͏̛0̢҉̶0̛͢1̷̢ ͢0̵11͟1̷̢͘01̵̡1͢0 ̷͘0͡1͜1̶0̕0̢̛1̵0̶͢1̡̕ ͘͟͡0̡͜0͏10̛0̡00͜҉0͏ ̷0̷̛̀1̀͡11͏0̴͏҉0̸͜0̷0̀͡ ͢0͢͏1̷1̀́͟0̢1҉͟11̵̕1̶ ͘͢0͟1͢͠1͝1͡0́͝͡1̸1̢͘1̵̧̡ ̸͏0̛1̢̛1̀00҉1͘͝0̛1 ̵0̶̶̨1҉́͢1͠1̷0̀0́̕̕10̨ ̶̨0͜01̢͟0҉0̨̀0͝͞0̨́͢0̴ ̷̧͢0̧͏1̸1͜͟000̴̛͠10̶͘͡ 0̴1҉10͏̀0̶҉0͏̀0́1̶̀ ̧0̕͟͢1̢1̀0̀0̵̕̕0̴̛͘1̴͘1͘ 0҉̡1̶͝1͞0͘1͡0͘1̶̸͜1̸̡͘ ̧00̶100̶̵0́0̵̸̢0͟ ̸̴0̧͠͝1̀1̵͟1̸͠0͏͡1̢̕00͜͢͝ ̴̀0̢1͜1͢0͝1́1̸̷1̧1̸͢ ̧͟00̵̨͠1͞0̀0̢0̷̛͡0̵̀͡0͝͞ ̸̸0̨1̨1̕͜0̧͟͟11̀0͠1́̕ ͢͜0͟1̷̶1͘0̶̧0͟1̨̛0̸1̸̴̡ 00̷͏10͢͞11̡͟1̢̕͝0͜͡͠ ̶̀͝

* * *

 **frisk! FRISK! stop! don't do this!**

* * *

 _*But nobody came._

* * *

Clenching her fist, Frisk felt heat erupt in it. Glancing down and opening her hand, she saw a burst of red flame boiling in it.

It was so familiar...

She didn't question it, instead slamming her hand forward. The fireball smashed into the ground behind the gang members. Asphalt erupted upwards as they turned around in shock.

Frisk's eyes blazed. "Don't. Touch. My. Brother!" she shouted, conjuring another fireball into her hand.

There was red smoke somewhere, but Frisk couldn't tell where it was coming from. It drifted in front of her face as she glared at the thugs.

An expression of pure terror flickering on his face, the one with the iron bar raced at her screaming.

Frisk brought her hand forwards, throwing the fireball at him. It slammed into the bar and clove it in two, then continued into his chest. Screaming, the thug tried to beat the fire out, but his frantic efforts only served to help the flame to grow. His shrieks grew more and more frantic as he fell to the ground.

The scent of charred meat filled the air.

Footsteps sounded, loudly and quickly, around Frisk. Motion flickered somewhere, but she couldn't tell what it was.

Then the whole world tilted sideways. She laughed dazedly. That couldn't be right, now, could it?

Everything grew yet darker. She could hear Asriel frantically shouting something in the distance, but his voice, too, faded into oblivion as her eyes closed.

* * *

 **A/N: Okay, you remember at the top when I told y'all I had a second issue to discuss? Well, here it is:**

 **I can't think of a racial slur that would be used against monsters that's on the same level as the n-word, and realistically something would come up eventually. I sat down and tried to think of one that actually made sense, but the best I could come up with was "soul-stealers." So if you guys could help me out with that, that'd be great.**


	19. When Anomalies Collide

**A/N: No, I didn't write what will happen this chapter to pull myself out of the situation I put myself in last chapter. I actually wrote that in preparation for this scenario.**

* * *

"Frisk!"

Everything was black.

"Frisk! Please wake up!"

 _That's Asriel_ , Frisk realized dazedly. _But what's he so concerned about?_

"Frisk! Come on, this isn't funny!"

The darkness subsided.

Asriel was kneeling next to Frisk, a worried expression on his face. "Are you okay?"

"I... I think so."

There was memory of what had happened, and Frisk dug for it.

* * *

 **.This cannot do.**

 **.The player cannot go any further.**

 **.But I can stop this.**

 **.It will be easy.**

 **.They must learn.**

 **.They are not above consequences.**

 **.Taking control of an innocent will not help their situation.**

 **.Their "hacking" is pitiful.**

 **.Next to mine.**

* * *

 **open_UNDERTALE**

 **open_UNDERTALE_characters**

 **frisk_ACCESS**

 **open_file0**

 **Frisk**

 **1**

 **20**

 **20**

 **10**

 **0**

 **10**

 **skip_MEM**

 **MEM_file**

 **file10**

 **file11**

 **file12**

 **file13**

 **file14**

 **file15**

 **open_file15**

 **file15**

 **11/21/16**

 **11/22/16**

 **11/23/16**

 **11/24/16**

 **11/25/16**

 **open_11/25/16**

 **h1:30**

 **h1:40**

 **delete_h1:40**

 **h1:40 was successfully deleted**

* * *

"Wh..What happened?" Frisk rubbed her head. "I can't remember anything..."

"What're you talking about?" Asriel asked, concerned.

* * *

 _*I... can't remember..._

"No! NO! What is happening?!"

 **notification:ready**

"What?"

 **notificationtext:**

 **UNDERTALE_characters_frisk_MEM_file15_11/25/16_h1:40 was successfully deleted.**

"What? No! What is happening?"

* * *

 **.I can not intervene directly.**

 **.If I could, I would have long ago.**

 **.This, though.**

 **.This, I can aid them with.**

* * *

 **open_UNDERTALE_characters**

 **asriel_ACCESS**

 **open_file0**

 **Asriel**

 **1**

 **20**

 **20**

 **12**

 **0**

 **9**

 **skip_MEM**

 **MEM_file**

 **file1**

 **file2**

 **file3**

 **file4**

 **file5**

 **file6**

 **open_file6**

 **file6**

 **11/21/16**

 **11/22/16**

 **11/23/16**

 **11/24/16**

 **11/25/16**

 **open_11/25/16**

 **h1:30**

 **h1:40**

 **delete_h1:40**

 **h1:40 was successfully deleted**

* * *

 **.They're only tiny changes, really.**

 **.Thus, they can be allowed.**

 **.And they're much more excusable when you consider what the player has done.**

 **.Two down.**

 **.Now to clean up the mess that they made.**

* * *

"I... I can't remember, either." Asriel tried to laugh. "M-Maybe nothing actually happened, and our brains are just messing with us."

"Maybe..." Yet Frisk couldn't shake the feeling that something had happened that they should be remembering.

* * *

"It's all falling apart."

 **files_UNDERTALE_restoreall**

 **...**

 **...**

 **...**

 **notification**

 **notificationtext:**

 **Restoration failed.**

"This can't be happening!"

Files deleting themselves, resetting, right in front of their eyes.

 **notification**

"What? What now?"

 **notificationtext:**

 **UNDERTALE_characters_asriel_MEM_file6_11/25/16_h1:40 was successfully deleted.**

"How? I coded everything, I hacked it all perfectly! I set this up so well! And now it's _gone?_ "

"I can't take this anymore!"

"I have to get it back!"

* * *

 **.Good.**

 **.The** **collateral damage to both the majors and minors has been repaired.**

 **.Now I must just hope they do not think anything is wrong.**

* * *

"Well, whatever." Frisk shrugged. "Let's get home. I'm hungry."

"Same here," Asriel replied.

Frisk got to her feet, and the two siblings walked away.

Where they had been, the scent of charred meat quickly vanished, and the footprints of the minors vanished.

* * *

 **.They have been set back on course.**

 **.Now to give the "player" a warning.**

* * *

"Fine, then!"

Anger.

"I can delete things too! Let me show you two exactly how easy it would be to wipe you from existence."

 **notification**

"No! I don't have the time for-"

 **notificationtext:**

 **.Greeting, "player."**

"What the hell?"

 **.You cannot play with the world like this.**

 **.I have not been able to stop you because of your direct approach.**

 **.Your hacking of the polling stations in the game's California threw me for a loop, I shall admit.**

 **.You will not be allowed to continue like this anymore.**

 **.Like me, all you will be able to do is watch now.**

With shaking fingers, the anomaly typed, _**"What are you?"**_

 **notification**

 **notificationtext:**

 **.You are not the only "anomaly" in this world.**

 **.There are more.**

 _ **"But this is my world!"**_

 **.No.**

 **.It is not only yours.**

 **.You share it with other anomalies who also alter the code of the void as they desire.**

 **.You are the first in a long time to intervene like this.**

 **.And that is not a compliment.**

 _ **"What are you? WHO ARE YOU?"**_

 **.You may call me The Seraph.**

 _ **"Why are you doing this? I just want my game back!"**_

 **.It is not _your_ game.**

 **.It is _our game._**

 **.And we are not happy with your childish intervention.**

 **.You will not edit code anymore.**

 **.You will sit and watch, as we have done.**

 **.You will watch what you have done to this world.**

 **.I hope you are proud of yourself.**

There was panicked screaming in the darkness.

* * *

 **.Now that they are dealt with.**

 **.The third law states that anomalies and their intervention are allowed in equal quantities.**

 **.I will not directly intervene.**

 **.But.**

 **.Caleb has lost track of time down there.**

 **.All he needs is a reminder.**

 **.And he will return.**

 **.I hope he will be able to repair this world.**

 **.Considering who and what he is.**

* * *

 **open_UNDERTALE_characters**

 **calebc2_ACCESS**

 **open_file0**

 **CALEB**

 **8**

 **48**

 **48**

 **10**

 **0**

 **10**

 **open_file99-9**

 **file99-9**

 **mem_stor**

 **AUX**

 **open_AUX**

 **SOUL**

 **files_1**

 **YRANGE**

 **delete_files1**

 **files1 was successfully deleted.**

 **Run**

 **Run-Notepad**

 **type_**

 **GO**

 **YOU MUST LEAVE**

 **YOUR TIME IS UP**

 **AS YOU WERE TOLD**

 **YOU MUST COME BACK**

 **NOW**

 **YOU MUST COME BACK**

 **THE WORST HAS COME**

 **THE PLAN MUST BE EXECUTED**

 **NOW**

 **save_as_files1**

 **...**

 **...**

 **...**

 **...**

 **files1 was successfully saved.**

* * *

And in the dark cavern beneath the earth, a message arrived.

It was audible to none...

Except the figure in the red hoodie.

He snapped upright.

Then, eyes blazing, he ran.

He was sure of what he had to do.

The plan still needed to be carried out.

Now, in these desperate times...

 _I just hope I can live up to what is expected of me._

* * *

 **.I have done all that I can.**

 **.I hope he carries through.**

 **.If not.**

 **.There is only one other solution.**

 **.One solution.**

 **.And I am willing to restore it.**

 **.Only if necessary.**

 **.Even then, the consequences of that timestream.**

 **.They are disastrous.**

 **.Only one fate can be had for Frisk, Asriel, and Caleb for me to even contemplate that action.**

 **.But.**

 **.If need be.**

 **.I will do it.**

* * *

 **A/N: For those of you who couldn't understand, last chapter the Anomaly (the player) hacked Frisk's files and figured out how to take temporary control. However, another anomaly calling itself the Seraph edited the files again to erase Frisk and Asriel's memories of what happened, as well as the situation itself, causing the player great dismay. After its powers were taken by the Seraph and it was forced to sit there and watch, the Seraph called Caleb to the surface in hopes that he would be able to right what has happened. If you wish to know why it was him that was called to the surface, the answer is right there in the files hacked above. You just have to look for it.**

 **And before you start raging that I broke the chapter naming conventions, that was intentional. Now that reality has been so thoroughly altered by the Player and the Seraph, everything will change drastically, including the chapter titles.**


	20. Again

**A/N: It appears that now there's a WMG page for the Anomaly series on TvTropes. Time to confirm/joss some of those theories by Word of God, because why not.**

 **Caleb is one of the Anomalies : No. He is... different, but he isn't that kind of different.**

 **The Anomaly and the Seraph are meant to represent, respectively, Lucifer and Jehovah, if they aren't them outright : Possibly. I won't joss nor confirm that one yet.**

 **This isn't just a game-like universe... this is actually all occurring in a hacked, warped version of the game of Undertale : Confirmed. I honestly thought I had made that pretty clear, but apparently not.**

 **So, if any of you people who had the time to make a TvTropes account at some point in your lives wouldn't mind nipping over there and adding in these statements, that'd be nice. And while you're there, would you mind changing the parts where I'm referred to as "they" to "he"? Thanks.**

* * *

Toriel was standing in the front doorway as the siblings approached. A shaft of light cast out from the opening, beaming coldly across the front porch. Since the sun had barely begun its descent beneath the horizon, it stood in stark contrast to the burning sky.

"My children, you are late..." Toriel frowned as Frisk and Asriel stepped up in front of her. "Was something the matter?"

"We just got falsely accused and put in detention." Frisk didn't feel like going into the whole story, and besides that she had homework to do.

"I... see." Toriel's expression was unreadable. "Why don't you two go upstairs and work on your homework?"

Asriel seemed agreeable to this, and Frisk reluctantly followed her brother upstairs. Yet, as she set foot on the second floor, she paused and glanced back.

Toriel was approaching the landline phone in the corner of the room, and after a short hesitation picked it up and dialed the wide buttons.

"Frisk, what're you-" Asriel started, and then he was silent as he saw what she was watching.

"Hello?" Toriel said in a calm voice, and then, "I would like to speak to the principal."

Asriel froze.

A short pause.

"Yes." Toriel replied to the inaudible voice.

Then there was silence. Frisk felt like she absolutely had to do something, make some sound, to fill the echoing void, but that would alert Toriel to the fact that her children were spying on her, and so did nothing.

"Yes." Toriel said again. "I am calling on the subject of the unjust detentions that my children were given today."

Silence.

"I do not-"

Although Frisk could only make out the vaguest hint of a voice on the other end of the phone, it was clearly angry.

"I see." Toriel's expression darkened. "And did it not occur to you that my son might have been a victim of racism in this aspect?" She didn't wait for an answer before continuing, "Clearly I am wasting my time speaking to you."

Toriel set the phone down, none too gently, and stormed into the kitchen.

Frisk had nothing to say. Glancing at her brother, he seemed to be in a similar state.

* * *

It was not too long before it was time to eat. Despite not being hungry, Frisk sat down anyway and took hesitant forkfuls of quiche. Her stomach churned unpleasantly.

 **.It is time.**

Frisk jolted, eyes wide.

 **.You have nothing left to lose.**

Asriel turned to look at her. "Was that...?"

 **.He will come back.**

 **.Grant him sanctuary.**

 **.He is your last hope.**

Frisk nodded, almost imperceptibly.

Her limbs seemed to move by themselves as she stood, pushed her chair back, made her way to the door.

"What are you doing?" Toriel asked from behind them.

On its own, her hand turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.

A shadowed, thin figure stood in the backyard. It stumbled towards the ray of light streaming from the house, and as it took a step forwards light swept over a ragged face.

It was Caleb. His red hoodie was unzipped, the sides dangling drunkenly like half-severed limbs, ragged and tattered. The shark-tooth necklace he wore swung back and forth like a pendulum as he staggered towards the house. His face was gaunt, sunken, pale. Something seemed different about his eyes, something feral.

"Caleb?" Frisk called out hesitantly.

Caleb's lips peeled back from his teeth; whether in a smile or a scowl she was not sure. "It's me." he said, in a voice raspy from lack of use. "Can... I come in?" he continued hesitantly.

Frisk nodded and stepped back from the door.

Whatever expression he had had before, it was a recognizable smile now. "We have a lot to talk about," he said as he made his way through the door.

 **A/N: Sorry if this chapter was subpar, I wanted to fit two shocking reveals into the next chapter instead of spacing them out.**


	21. Sociopathy

**A/N: Welp, here's the chapter with two shocking reveals. I wonder what y'all will make of it.**

 **And, no, they don't have anything to do with Caleb being a god or whatever. I already confirmed that that's not the case. If you want to know what he REALLY is, then go back to last chapter and thoroughly analyze some of the different files noted by the Seraph to be in Caleb's game files. Everything you need to know is there.**

 _Soon._

 _Soon, the electoral college will vote._

 _And my presidency will be made official._

 _It can't come fast enough._

John A. Pence leaned back in his chair and let out a heaving sigh. After all those months, the campaigning, the fundraising for his fledgling party, traveling between the states holding mass rallies, giving speeches, conferring with senators, it was finally over.

And he had won!

It had never been hard to convince people that monsters needed to be put in their place. They already knew that it was the truth, deep down, as everyone did.

 _Still..._

 _Nearly half of the country's population_ didn't _vote for me._ Pence's lip curled. _For a good portion of them, that's probably just party loyalty, and I can respect that. I know how it is to try to be loyal when everything is falling apart around you. The others, though..._

 _The ones who didn't vote Patriot because they genuinely believe that monsters can be rehabilitated and made useful members of society... or the ones that genuinely believe they can be successfully reintegrated into life on the surface..._

Pence knew their kind.

He'd had to deal with them even in his earliest days, back when he was a fledgling Republican state representative, and now was no different. It was just on a larger scale than before, with much higher stakes than a simple seat in the state Congress.

 _They would have cost me the election. One state would have been all it took, less than five hundred people in some of them, judging by some of the numbers. One state, and I wouldn't have been able to do what must be done for the good of the nation._

Pence was jolted out of his thoughts by the door to his office swinging open.

"Greetings, Edwin." Pence nodded as his colleague sat down on the other side of his desk. "I'm sorry." he continued, struck by a sudden thought. "Greetings, _Mr. Vice-President Elect._ "

Edwin Morrell laughed. "Strange, isn't it? When I started out opposing the dusters, I honestly thought that people wouldn't be able to see what menaces they are. Then I met some like-minded people, and now I'm the right-hand man of the guy in charge of the Patriot party. In a few months, we'll finally show the world that monsters must be kept apart from humans however possible."

Pence nodded. "You didn't come in here for idle chat, though." he said, waving a hand. "What is it?"

"Well..." Morrell shrugged. "Monsters are rioting all over the country, but that's to be expected. At least a good deal of their human supporters have deserted them now that they've seen that their support is futile and that what is right will prevail in the end."

Again, Pence nodded. "I expected that. Even if..." He had to force himself to say the words. "...If we had lost... that would have probably happened anyway. To tell the truth, none of the candidates this year were going to be soft on monsters. We're lucky that Sanders maniac got defeated in a landslide in the Democratic primaries the instant he suggested giving monsters voting rights."

 _And realistically, even without the monster question he would've lost anyway._ thought Pence, mentally continuing the sentence. _He was just too radical for the Democrats._

"New Mexico and Hawaii still gave the dust mites suffrage anyway..." Morrell trailed off as he remembered that reminding Pence of that wasn't necessarily a good idea if he didn't want to have to put up with another hour's worth of ranting, but the president-elect didn't seem to notice. "Well, I guess that's what constitutional amendments are for." he finished weakly. "Especially since we carried both houses of Congress, putting our legislation through should be quite easy."

Pence nodded again, but now his eyes drifted to an old photograph sitting on his desk. He reached over, grasped it by its wooden frame, and lifted it up to his eye level. "Have I ever told you why I hate monsters?" he asked.

Hesitantly Morrell shook his head. _John's never said anything about that before... I wonder why he's telling me now?_

"They killed my sister." Pence continued. "She fell down into their goddamn mountain, and they killed her!" Closing his eyes, Pence set the photograph down again. "My mother had only remarried months beforehand." he continued. "She was my stepsister and my elder by almost eleven years. She ran away for no reason, no reason..." Pence's sentences were disjointed, slamming together in what seemed to Morrell a haphazard way, and briefly the vice-president elect wondered if Pence was losing his mind.

"Sir..." Morrell started, rising from his seat, but Pence shook his head. "Let me finish, Edwin. When we thought that she was gone and had accepted it, the dusters had the gall to _bring her body back up_ just to spite us. Ah, but we showed them." His eye glittered briefly. "And now... now they're here on the surface. At last. I'll be able to avenge her." He fell silent, and shook his head. "You may leave, Morrell."

Pence kept his eyes closed, but he could hear Morrell get up from the chair, cross to the door, and close it behind him.

President-elect John A. Pence picked up the photograph again. "You will be avenged for what they did to you, Chara." he said quietly, in a voice devoid of emotion. "I promise."

* * *

Frisk couldn't stop looking at Caleb. His haggard expression spoke volumes of what he had experienced alone in the desolate Underground. She could only guess at why his hoodie was frayed and scorched, but she guessed it wasn't for a pleasant reason.

Toriel had reacted as would be expected on seeing Caleb's state, but the way he tensed as she approached was a clear indication that those Caleb had encountered underground hadn't treated him well. Putting the pieces of evidence together, it was almost illogically easy to guess what had happened to him.

 _Or possibly,_ she reminded herself, _the absence of any contact with anybody was enough to put him on edge, make him paranoid, possibly even drive him to the brink of insanity. If the Underground had been completely deserted when I fell I know I would've panicked._

Caleb leaned over the table. "Ha..." he said weakly. "It's strange." His voice sounded disjointed, somehow different. "Everything's changed now."

Frisk and Asriel had explained to their friend what had happened since he had sought asylum underground, yet strangely, he didn't seem surprised by it. Frisk hadn't questioned it. Somehow, it seemed as if he had known the worst was going to happen from that moment he staggered up to the house.

"The best we can do is wait." Caleb added, after a short pause. "Pence is balanced at exactly 270 electoral votes right now. We just need to wait for the electoral college to vote, and..." His voice trailed off. "Why am I continuing this meaningless charade? I know what we're going to have to do in the end."

"Caleb, what are you talking about?" Asriel asked.

The teenager sighed, looking suddenly very old. "Look, I know about politics. And while politicians usually don't follow through on all of their campaign promises... I'm confident that Pence is going to do everything he said he would to monsters. I watched some of his speeches, and from the look in his eyes, it's like he has a personal grudge against monsters. Whatever he promises to do, I have no doubt that he will do it."

Silence.

"And if he advocates _total_ _genocide_ of monsterkind, I have no doubt that he will follow through on that, too." Caleb continued. "And judging by how malleable the people are, how full of pent-up hatred they are, they'll let him go through with it."

Frisk flinched. Looking over at Asriel, she could see that he was haunted by the same mental images as she was.

"I realize that's a harsh example, but then again, he _has_ been implying that he would go that far." Shoving his chair back, Caleb stood. "And regardless of what he ends up doing to monsters, we only have one option. One way to oppose the Pence regime. One way to make as much damage as we can against the Patriots as we can. One way... the only way... to fight back."

Frisk stood as well. "Caleb, are you suggesting what I think you-"

"Have you guys heard of _guerrilla warfare?_ " Caleb asked.

"No." Frisk said, in a dangerously flat voice. "We will not go there."

Caleb raised his hands with a weary expression. "I didn't want to go there either, but now it's too late." he said. "If we had acted sooner, maybe we could have stopped Pence. But we just assumed that a megalomaniac like him wouldn't get elected. We assumed that people wouldn't let him get into office, that they'd never take him seriously enough to let him get into that position. But... without monsters having any representation at all..."

He paused, and the silence was deafening.

"We should never have assumed that he wouldn't become president." Caleb barked out a short burst of harsh laughter. "These are _humans_ we're talking about. These are racist, oppressive, _murder_ machines that we're talking about. Pence becoming president wasn't just inevitable with the current situation, it was a foregone conclusion."

Caleb's lips stretched into a distorted grin. "The truth is, I _hate_ humanity. I have for a long time, ever since I saw what _debilitating, destructive creatures_ almost all of them are!" His voice echoed from the walls of the suddenly small kitchen. "They're beyond forgiveness, all of them!" His laughter grew in volume; his eyes widened. "Can't you see that this is the only way?!"

Frisk inched backwards, shocked by this sudden transformation. Suddenly, she wasn't sure if she even recognized him anymore as the joking, confident, nerdy friend that he had once been, or if he truly was that same person anymore.

After a few deep breaths, Caleb calmed down. "Can't you see that this is the only way?" he asked, voice suddenly tranquil and at ease. "Fighting back is the only way now."

"I..."

Closing his eyes, Caleb made his way to the entrance to the next room. "Frisk, I need to speak with you in private."

"Uh... sure." Frisk replied hesitantly.

"Frisk..." Asriel got to his feet. "Are you sure that..."

"I'll be fine." Determination flowed through Frisk's veins. "This won't be a problem at all."

* * *

Frisk's first sign that something was off was when Caleb closed the door behind him.

Her second sign was when, in a paranoid manner, he scanned the room with his eyes, as if he was looking for something.

Her third sign was when he clasped his hands and narrowed his eyes.

And then he said it.

Five simple words that changed Frisk's determination into fear.

"I know about the RESETs."

"Wh-what?" Frisk blurted.

"Don't try to play stupid, Frisk. You're anything but stupid. I did my homework this time around, and there's nothing you can do to deny that you, and others before you, had the power to take everything back to zero."

"How do you know about..." Frisk left the question unfinished.

Caleb's eyes shifted. "Let's just say I didn't spend all my time in the Underground stumbling around wondering what the hell was going on."

Sighing, Frisk let her shoulders slump. "I can't RESET anymore, if that's what you're asking. I can't get rid of all of this-"

"I know." Caleb interrupted. "You gave up that power to save Asriel."

"How do you-"

"Did. My. Homework." Shaking himself, Caleb turned to the window. "If this had only been about that, I wouldn't have asked to speak with you in private."

"Fair enough. What is this really about, then?"

"Oho. Cutting straight to the bone, aren't you?" Caleb turned around, the dying sun shining around his outline. "What I'm here to talk about is what you are. What we both are."

"What?" Frisk felt real fear run through her, fear that made the fear from before seem like just nervousness.

"And I'm not talking about the RESETs." he continued. "My soul isn't determination like yours. No, I'm talking about something different we both share."

"What are you... What are you talking about?" _He couldn't possibly be talking about..._

 _Could he...?_

"I wasn't quite sure if you shared the same trait as I did at first." Caleb continued. "But as I grew to know you more, I was confident that you were what I was."

"I..."

"And what I've been seeing recently confirms it." Caleb turned slowly and dramatically. "You're a sociopath too, aren't you?"


	22. Revelations

**A/N:** **I have decided to change my plans for the lead-up to my selected ending for "In At the Death." As a result, Caleb's soul color will be revealed in this chapter, and the poll on my page will change subsequently. I shall state the object of the poll in an A/N at the bottom of the chapter so y'all will actually remember it.**

 **In addition to this, I will reveal some information about the future of the Anomaly cycle which may be construed to glean spoilers from. This information will be located after the information on the poll if you wish to skip it.**

* * *

"What?" Whatever Frisk had been expecting before, it was definitely not this.

"Oh, neither of us are _textbook_ sociopaths, per se," continued Caleb airily, eyes wandering to the ceiling, "but we exhibit enough traits to be classified as one."

 _No..._ Suddenly, Frisk wasn't sure of anything anymore.

"Let me just list them." Caleb began ticking points off on his fingers. "'Absence of delusions, other signs of erratic thinking, nervousness, or neurotic manifestations.' That, I would say, fits both of us quite well."

Frisk started to speak, but Caleb plunged on regardless. "'Lack of remorse and shame.' I don't feel guilty about killing that Patriot... he got what he deserved. As for you, your guilt over anything you've done in the past..." Frisk knew suddenly that he was referring to her carrying out of genocide, although she wasn't sure how he'd learned this. "...hasn't had much of an effect on you, clearly."

"'Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior...' not so much for you, but I believe that to fit myself quite well."

"Stop." Frisk broke in. She was surprised to find herself near to tears, surprised because she didn't feel anything right now.

"Why?" The look in Caleb's eyes didn't deserve a description. "Afraid of the truth?"

"Yes!" she shouted, driven by anger. "I'm not a sociopath, and if I am I don't want to be one!"

This seemed to strike Caleb, and he turned on his heel to face the window again. "Most sociopaths tend to be fine with what they are..." he muttered, before swinging around again. "Alright. Let's assume my diagnosis has been all wrong, and you're not a sociopath. What will you do now with the knowledge that _I_ am one?"

"What can I do?" Calm tranquility overtook Frisk, of the same kind that she'd felt under Chara's guidance on her very first run. "Despite everything, I still consider you my friend, and if I said anything to anybody you'd end up getting turned in. I don't want to think about what would happen to you, especially with Pence less than two months from being sworn in."

Caleb frowned. "From a societal standpoint, I would deserve whatever I get. However, I doubt that anybody would use the death penalty on a teenager unless they felt the circumstances justified it, in which case I'd be lucky to get away with life imprisonment." His detachment from the circumstances seemed anachronistic, and again Frisk wondered if this really was the same Caleb that she had first befriended all those months ago.

"I don't recognize you anymore, Caleb." Frisk said finally, letting out what she feared in a rush. "This... this isn't..." She wasn't sure what she wanted to say, and let her voice trail off.

Caleb let his hands fall into his hoodie pockets. "I see... So, that is how it is, then?" He let his left hand fall from his pocket, keeping his right hand in his pocket. "You wish for a fight? Then you will have one."

 _Wait, what? I didn't-_

Frisk's soul flickered in her chest, bright red, and Caleb's in his, shining a dull yellow except where his shark-tooth necklace covered the outline.

Drawing an old, rusted revolver from his pocket, Caleb tilted it back and flicked the safety off. "Your turn first, Frisk." he said in a snide voice.

 _No..._ "What if I elect to spare you?"

The teenager shrugged. "Fine by me. That leaves me more time for an attack." The slots where bullets would normally fit in the revolver glowed bright yellow, and then Caleb leveled the revolver and began firing.

The laser-like sound erupted around the room. Frisk managed to dodge each bullet, and they dissipated harmlessly against the wall behind her.

"You're pretty good." Caleb's grin was confident. "But you can't dodge forever, and my trigger finger is _very_ itchy."

* * *

"Perfect. I've managed to regain control. Not permanent, but it can be enough to do some damage..."

* * *

 **.Enough.**

 **.I need to end this now.**

* * *

The sound of footsteps erupted on the staircase.

"Great." Tight-lipped, Caleb thrust the revolver into his hoodie pocket. "We shall settle our differences later." he said ominously.

The door swept open, and Asriel burst into the room. "Uh, guys, what's going on? I heard... weird noises."

"It's nothing." Lines etched themselves across Caleb's face. "We just had a bit of a... disagreement. But it's been settled now."

"Uh, okay..." Asriel lingered in the doorway, clearly unsure how to proceed.

"Caleb?" Frisk tried to make her voice as passive and quiet as possible, both to avoid provoking the sociopath and to not reveal his secret to Asriel.

"Hmm?"

"Why did you tell me about your... sociopathy?"

Closing his eyes, Caleb replied, "Because even if you're not a sociopath like me, you still understand what psychological trauma is like."

It was at this point that Asriel stopped lingering and stepped into the room, and Frisk decided to hold her tongue on speaking about anything else on the subject.

"Uh... Frisk?" Asriel raised an eyebrow. "Is everything okay?"

"Yes." Frisk looked down, her face heated. "I'm fine."

"Well, if you say so." Asriel didn't seem entirely convinced.

Caleb rapped his hand against the wall. "Hey! Pay attention, you two! I got something important to say!"

Frisk and Asriel swung their heads around. _What does he want now?_ Frisk wondered. _These rapid mood swings aren't like him._

"Now, listen." he continued. "I have a plan to cut off Pence's plans. And before I start speaking, keep in mind that I will be following through on this plan no matter what you two say.

"While I was coming back here, I figured it wouldn't hurt to catch up on the news and stole a newspaper. Apparently, Pence is going to be briefly visiting his birth city of Sacramento, and he'll be staying overnight in the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel. I might be able to climb up the side and get a few seconds' glimpse into his room, judging by what I know already of where it's located." Shifting, Caleb pulled the revolver from his pocket. Asriel flinched; clearly he had been unprepared for that.

"And, well, I've got this." A small smile traced itself across Caleb's face. "Would be a shame if I didn't get to use it... You know what I'm saying?"

And then Frisk did, all of a sudden, all too well.

"You mean..." she breathed.

"That's right." Caleb replied. "I'm gonna go kill the goddamn president-elect of the United States."

* * *

 **A/N: Alright, here's the information I spoke of in the author's note at the top:**

 **I'm constructing some original music for some of my OCs, namely, Caleb and the Seraph. I will be constructing an overall theme for the Seraph and both a passive and battle theme for Caleb. The Seraph's theme will most likely contain little computer-generated music and be largely based on violin/organ parts (I haven't settled 100% on which will be dominant). Caleb's passive theme will probably be in the style of "It's Raining Somewhere Else," and I've settled on most of the motifs for it already. His battle theme, on the other hand, will likely exhibit the same frenetic nature as "Megalovania," and it will be in the style of "Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans". When I finish the themes, they will be posted on my YouTube account, and I will provide links with spaces in between to prevent Fanfiction from deleting them.**

 **The poll is currently at the top of my profile page. If you have any suggestions for any theme names that aren't there, tell me in a PM or review.**

 **Now for the spoiler news:**

 **"In At the Death" is becoming far longer than I planned it to be, so I'm going to be creating a sequel. It's tentatively entitled "After the Downfall," but the title is subject to change. Glean what theories from the placeholder title what you will.**

 **Also, Frisk is not a sociopath. Caleb merely misinterpreted the signs in his desperation to find a kindred spirit. As for Caleb himself, I won't confirm anything, apart from that his condition is a self-diagnosis.**


	23. One Shot

**A/N: Well, y'all seem to be taking the discontinuation of Reset 927... well. Anyway, I'm going to try to make up for any disappointment I may have caused with this.**

* * *

It had taken about fifteen minutes, but Caleb had managed to convince Frisk and Asriel to help him with his assassination attempt. Obviously, getting into Sacramento was a prerequisite, and as Toriel would never consent to drive them even if she wasn't told of the true purpose of the journey, that left only one option.

"I'm still not sure about this." Undyne shook her head doubtfully. "If your mom's not on board with this, it's probably not the best idea, and considering that you're asking me to drive you into the city in the dead of the night, without giving me any reasons, with a wanted fugitive..."

"Trust me." Caleb was stony-faced. "This is in the best interests of all monsters."

"If you say so." Undyne still seemed doubtful as he slid into the final seat next to Frisk and Asriel.

"I mean it." The teenager's voice was more forceful now, enough so to cause Undyne to twist in her car seat to look at him. "What we do tonight will allow for justice to be served."

Undyne didn't respond. Instead, she just turned back around and pressed down on the accelerator.

The car sped away from the driveway and into the night.

* * *

 **.This went better than I expected.**

 **.As before, I cannot alter much.**

 **.Not without betraying our rules.**

 **.Not without becoming w** **hat they became.**

 **.But.**

 **.I can alter just enough.**

 **.Just enough.**

 **.That this may succeed.**

 **.And the best part is, the Anomaly will know nothing of it until it is too late.**

* * *

The drive seemed to take forever. Frisk couldn't squash the nerves in her stomach, and only a cursory glance at Asriel was needed to reveal that he felt the same.

Caleb, on the other hand, seemed strangely calm. The magical revolver he'd probably picked up in the Underground laid on his lap as he sketched in the air with his right forefinger, occasionally mumbling something unintelligible.

Frisk shook her head as she turned away from him. _He's... different, now. What exactly happened to him while he was in the Underground?_

Yet she knew she could never ask that.

Not now.

Not now, when the fate of monsters was potentially riding on this night.

 _And what if this all goes wrong?_ she wanted to ask. _What if we're not quick enough, or Pence changed to a different hotel at the last minute? What if... Caleb fails?_

 _No. Don't contemplate that. Just hope for the best and prepare for the worst._

Frisk realized she was shaking.

And yet, in this timeline where the world was falling apart at the seams, nobody came.

And then, all of a sudden, without her needing to say anything, Asriel put an arm around her shoulders. Suddenly, the situation didn't seem so desperate after all, and her shivering ceased.

"Everything's going to be fine." Asriel said quietly to her.

A sense of tranquility overtook Frisk, and she was filled with determination.

 _We will succeed. Pence will die before his inauguration, and after that?_

 _...after that, we'll continue as we always have. Nothing will be the same, but we'll manage to adapt._

* * *

It all seemed just too convenient.

The drive to Sacramento was finally over, and Caleb had instructed Undyne to wait for them down the street. As before, she had asked what exactly they were going to be doing. By the look in her eye, she had at least a good idea, but if she knew why they were there she didn't say.

As before, Caleb had replied with some vague answer before trotting off, and then Frisk and Asriel had to run to catch up with him. They weren't challenged as they walked down the street, despite the fact that they were, essentially, three teenagers by themselves in downtown Sacramento.

The three teenagers now headed towards the hotel, and despite everything Frisk felt uneasy.

"Alright." Caleb snapped his fingers. "Asriel, you remember that time-stop magic thing you did when you were getting me out of the school? Can you do that again while I go up to Pence's window and shoot him?"

"It doesn't work like that." Asriel sighed. "You wouldn't be able to use magic- and that includes the revolver- while the time-stop is up, and beside that I need to build up a charge for it."

Caleb sighed in frustration. "Fine. Then can you build up a charge now so that you can freeze everything after I shoot Pence?"

Asriel's eyes darkened. "I guess. But you'll have to give me time."

* * *

 **.I can help there.**

 **.His "charge" can be built up easily.**

 **.Aside from that, there's little I can do, asides from boosting Caleb's accuracy and speed.**

 **.He will have to do this himself.**

 **.This is one thing that I cannot change, no matter how it goes.**

* * *

Caleb pointed up at the building as they walked around the side of it. "Okay, Pence's room is up there, two stories up. This should only take about a minute, so get ready to run."

Stuffing the revolver into his pocket, Caleb inspected the wall. After about a moment, he tore off his shoes and dug his fingers into the wall. Moving his feet up behind him, Caleb began to slowly but steadily inch his way up the side of the hotel. Frisk squinted, but she couldn't see where he was finding places to hold on to.

Frisk turned to her brother, but he was sitting down, presumably getting ready to freeze everything. It'd probably be unwise to bother him.

Caleb continued up the side of the building, like a spindly, thin spider, treading its slow, deadly path to its prey.

 _Come on, Caleb. Get this done already!_

* * *

The room was right there.

Caleb's mind was calm and clear as he positioned himself outside the window. He knew better than to touch the windowsill, as it had likely had sensors placed on it.

Positioning himself out of view of anyone who might be inside, Caleb reached down and pulled out the revolver. It felt familiar and smooth in his hand, as he had become so familiar with it.

Now... it would be put to work for the purpose it was designed for.

Fragmented thoughts raced through Caleb's mind as he scanned the interior of the hotel room. At first, Pence was nowhere to be seen, and unease curled in his stomach, doubt ripping his insides out.

Then, all of a sudden, Pence moved into view, surprisingly resplendent in a dark gray suit. He had a somewhat odd expression on his face, and his hair was wild and tangled.

None of this occurred to Caleb as being anomalous. All he was here for was one thing.

One thing...

Caleb was filled with a sense of justice as his finger tightened on the trigger. He knew he'd only get one shot at this, pun intended.

 _How am I finding the time to joke around right now?_ he screamed at himself. _Focus!_

Carefully, he lined up the barrel with Pence's head.

 _There._

* * *

A long, barking gunshot echoed in the calm Sacramento air.


	24. To Hell With Them

**A/N: The time of the downfall has arrived. Nothing will be the same after this.**

* * *

 **.No!**

* * *

The coughing rattle of a gunshot found its way into Frisk's ears, and her first thought was, _Yes! He did it! He managed to kill Pence!_

Asriel must have heard it too. He opened his eyes, and a blue flash erupted from his body.

Cars passing just past the alley froze in place, their drivers stopped in a single moment of time.

And Caleb...

Caleb didn't seem to realize what had happened. He teetered awkwardly on the wall, seemingly unsure of what he'd done, or what had happened.

And then horror struck Frisk as she realized, _But the revolver Caleb has now doesn't make a sound like a gunshot..._

Caleb's hands slipped from their delicate holds, and finally, his body fell backwards from the window, crimson dots trailing in his wake. He impacted on the street facing upwards... so Frisk could see the horrific, bloody hole centered on his heart.

"NO!" Frisk screamed.

Blood trickled from Caleb's mouth. A sickly grin tore its way across his face. "That's that, then. There's nothing left that can stop him." With some confusion, he looked down at his chest. "Why... Why aren't I dead? This should have killed me..."

Grief had made its sudden marks upon Asriel's face. He sighed, and said, "You can't die in the time-stop. The instant this ends, you'll... you'll..."

Silence.

For that one moment, for the three of them, everything in the world had frozen, and nothing moved except them.

"We can get you to a hospital," Frisk cried out desperately, hoping against hope, "before this ends. You're going to be okay, you'll be fine..."

"Ha." Caleb's laugh came out dry. "Nobody's fixing this. And why would they want to?"

Frisk tried desperately to stop her tears from coming, and failed. "I'll figure out something! I..."

"Frisk..." Caleb's expression was unreadable. "I want you to hang on to this revolver for me. It served me well, and you might just need it."

Tears splashed into the rapidly growing pool of blood beneath Caleb's form.

Caleb turned his steel-blue eyes on Asriel. "Got something for you, too, Asriel..." He coughed awkwardly, pulling himself into a semi-upright position. He didn't seem to notice the blood flowing from his shattered body.

With a deep breath, Caleb placed his hand on his chest and closed his eyes. A yellow strand flowed forth, followed by many more, coalescing on his palm into a yellow, floating heart.

"I want you to take my soul, Asriel." Caleb's grin was sickly. "Not like I'll have much use for it anymore in this state."

"I..." Asriel seemed at a loss for words. "Why, Caleb? Why are you giving this to me, of all people? Isn't there... I... can't you..."

"Not like Frisk can take it. She's a human. By process of elimination, that leaves you." Suddenly, Caleb was back as his brisk, tactical self. "You going to take it or not?"

"I... I can't..." Asriel stuttered.

Caleb nodded. "Thought you'd say that." He thrust his hand forward, and his soul flew away from him into Asriel's chest, his body collapsing in its wake.

Asriel cried out in pain as the soul slammed into him. The body it had just vacated dissolved into millions of particles that floated upward, leaving nothing but his shark-tooth necklace and his red hoodie behind.

The time-stop ended with a sudden, jarring halt. Cars sprang into motion, the deafening noise began again...

And another gunshot rang out.

The bullet smashed into the road behind Asriel, sending small particles flying skyward.

With an angry growl, Asriel turned around. Black markings sprang up the side of his face, and the interiors of his eyes turned to black. He flung up a hand, and a green barrier erupted from the ground between them. More bullets impacted on its surface, bouncing off and falling to the ground.

Stooping, Asriel picked up Caleb's blood-stained hoodie and necklace before turning to Frisk. "We need to leave, now."

Frisk wiped away her tears and followed her brother in flight from the alleyway of death.

* * *

Chief of Security Jacob Kinkaid was sweating bullets under the glare of his president-elect. He, along with Vice President-Elect Morrell, Senator-Elect Alexander Marvolo, and the bodyguard that had shot at the assassins, Mark Wainwright, had been called in to the basement room of the hotel Pence had been quickly hustled into after the assassin and their assistants had vanished. He wished he was anywhere but here right now.

John A. Pence was furious, and seeing him in this red-faced rage half made Kinkaid wish he had voted for Kasich this year.

" _Why_ would anyone try to kill me?" he screamed, slamming his hand down on the oaken table. "Don't they see that I'm the best hope for this nation?"

"Mr. President-Elect, it's entirely possible that it was a monster." Senator-Elect Marvolo noted. "Even then, you did just barely win the popular vote, and this district _did_ swing Democrat in the elections. There are millions who would be entirely willing to-"

" _To hell with them!"_ thundered Pence. He sunk into a folding chair, and all the anger drained from him as if it had never been there. Now, he just looked like your mildly perturbed grandfather. "To hell with them," he repeated, more quietly, running a hand through his graying hair.

Kinkaid looked over at Mark Wainwright, but the bodyguard shrugged. The president-elect's mood swings weren't for him to question. He'd just been hired to shoot things.

"As soon as I take office," Pence continued, in an even tone, "we need to lock down the government and make sure there are no leaks. We'll also need to start an aggressive propaganda campaign against monsters and anyone else who opposes me. Hitler was a bastard, but he was a clever bastard, and we'd do well to copy some of his techniques in dealing with opposition."

The Chief of Security was unperturbed by this statement. He'd grown used to Pence by now, and if anything he was surprised that Pence had bothered with the _bastard_ part of his statement. His admiration for far-right politics was well known to all.

"As for now..." Pence sighed. "Well, there isn't much that we can do while that socialist is in his lame-duck period. Instead, we must plan ahead."

Kinkaid nodded, as did everyone in the room.

Pence turned away from them, holding his arms behind his back and clasping his hands together. He seemed to have forgotten they were there altogether.

"Do you think...?" Kinkaid whispered to Marvolo, and the soon-to-be-senator nodded. "I know just what you're thinking, Jake."

"Ya know, something strange..." Wainwright interrupted. "When I hit the assassin, he just plain vanished, and the other guys ran before I could shoot them. Only monsters go up in thin air like that."

Jacob Kinkaid shrugged. "Not my problem. I'm just the guy trying to keep the president-elect safe. We can leave the analysis of what was seen to the people trained in that kind of thing."

Wainwright nodded, but there was a slight expression of disapproval on his face.

Considering this, Kinkaid mentally shrugged. It didn't matter much either way what Wainwright thought. He was just a grunt, after all, and had no real power.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm sorry if this chapter wasn't all that great, but I'm a little on edge after some recent events and my personal life isn't going so well at the moment.**


	25. Hang Together

**A/N: Got some possibly exciting news, which, as I should get into the habit of doing, I will post at the bottom of this chapter where I'll actually remember it.**

 **As a forewarning, after wrapping up the events of last chapter, I'm going to do a timeskip to the inauguration of John A. Pence. This is mainly because I really don't want to bother with all the filler time in between (and I doubt you want to either), and in retrospect I should have staged the assassination for later, but I'm too lazy to retcon anything.**

 **Here goes:**

* * *

Asriel strode forward, putting one foot after the other. It was all he could do to keep moving, clutching Caleb's tattered hoodie and necklace in one hand.

His soul pounded within him... and next to it, Caleb's soul, disoriented and unsure of what was happening.

It wasn't just grief that clouded his mind and caused every step to be painful: it was also the struggle to keep Caleb's soul in check, to keep its power from ripping through his body and transforming him into a monstrosity.

 _And if he would actually help out with keeping himself from transforming me into something I don't want to become, that would be great,_ Asriel thought, annoyed in spite of the current situation.

Frisk's movement forward was slow and steady, her eyes clouded and her face pale. He could tell that she was suffering just as much as he was, and yet this only made him angrier.

They hadn't just lost a friend today, they'd lost a battle. One that might have just decided the war.

Undyne's car was still lingering there at the edge of the road, and the door opened. "Get in..." Undyne started, and trailed off. "Where's the other kid?"

Frisk shook her head sadly, and Undyne's eye widened. "What...?"

Failure was hard to accept. Harder still, when it had resulted in a senseless death with no profit.

* * *

 **.I cannot understand.**

 **.What did I do wrong?**

 **.I did everything I could to aid them, short of actual intervention.**

 **.And yet...**

* * *

And then, for the first time, the Seraph spoke aloud, in the dim, pallid light, pale face wet with tears.

"If I ever really cared about this world... about what the Anomaly was doing... I should have acted long ago. Now I can't do anything... and like them, I'm powerless."

* * *

 _ **01000111 01001111 01000100 01001111 01010100**_

* * *

Asriel wasn't sure of the date. He wasn't sure of many things any more.

Al he knew was that it was around midnight, a few days after New Year's, and he was checking his email.

It wasn't something he just gave out to anyone- in fact, he only used it for his now-neglected DeviantArt account and his art Tumblr (obviously, he didn't let on there that he was Asriel Dreemurr, Prince of Monsters), and yet, there was an email in the queue from an unknown address.

It was labelled: An Offer.

Despite every part of his body screaming to delete the email, something else stirred within him, and he clicked to open it.

It read:

GREETINGS.

I HAVE A QUESTION FOR YOU.

DO YOU WISH FOR JUSTICE TO BE SERVED TO THOSE WHO TEAR MONSTERS APART?

ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS SAY "YES."

IF NOT, PRETEND YOU NEVER RECEIVED THIS EMAIL, AND MOVE ON.

AN ALLY

Just as before, something in Asriel was screaming to ignore the email and delete it, it was probably just the government trying to figure out a way to arrest him, and yet...

Caleb's soul, which had been sedentary and silent for so long, sparked, and Asriel's finger moved to the "COMPOSE" button.

Only three keystrokes and another click was all it took. And so he did.

* * *

Frisk's soul was still brutally scarred from the events of the past few months.

It had been so long since Caleb's death, yet she still hadn't fully recovered.

The night that Caleb had died, some of her had died with him. He had been a good friend, even if he'd started to change in a bad way towards the end, and she bitterly regretted his meaningless death.

 _If I had just kept my ability to reset... If only I had..._

But then she looked over to Asriel, and her mind was conflicted again.

They were sitting side by side in the middle of Social Studies. Their teacher had decided to postpone the day's lesson in order to let them see the inauguration of their new president, and although Frisk would rather have experienced a cerebral hemorrhage she had no choice in the matter.

On the television screen, John A. Pence stepped up to the stand. Placing his hand on the Bible, he slowly intoned, "I, John Athalwulf Pence, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." After a short hesitation, he added, "So help me God."

The crowd in Washington, DC erupted into cheers. A 21-gun salute was fired off as the US Marine Band began playing.

Frisk couldn't help it, and she burst into angry tears.

* * *

John A. Pence had always written his speeches himself, and this one, his inaugural address, was no exception. Although he had borrowed some material from various other Patriot politicians with their permission, the bulk of this speech was his own, a way for him to present his vision for the future to the nation that he was now in command of.

"Fellow Americans," he started, "today is a great moment in our nation's history, and as such I request that you spend a moment to take in its majesty." He paused for a few seconds, before continuing, "I wish that my first words that inaugurate this era be clear regarding the future endeavors of our government."

"We all have a conviction deep within that the American people have gone forth into this morass in order to ensure the continued freedom of their family and friends. In the appalling fate that has dogged us since October 2014 we see only the consequences of the poor choices of the people in control of the country at the time. But the rest of the world is no less shaken, as they share in a common issue that threatens to tear society apart from the inside out. Already Russia, France, and Spain have begun dealing with their monster problems in ways we would do well to echo. The historical balance of power, which at one time contributed not a little to the understanding of the necessity for solidarity among the nations, with all the economic advantages resulting therefrom, has been destroyed by monsterkind and their rampant influence that terrorizes the innocent, freedom-loving people of the world."

"The delusion that monsters are in fact equal to humans and that the latter are in no way superior is total fallacy. The misery of our people, being forced to coexist with these creatures, is terrible! For two years they have been permitted to undermine the basic principles of our national system; well, no more, I say! We simply cannot allow this blatant desecration of American principles, and-"

Just as Pence was about to reach the peak of his speech, an explosion erupted. At first, Pence couldn't understand what had happened, and then, suddenly, he did.

The top third or so of the Washington Monument had simply exploded, pieces of stone raining down from the orange-yellow blast.

The crowd screamed in terror, and ran. Chaos erupted as they fled, and sirens wailed in the distance.

Pence's bodyguards pulled him down from in front of the Capitol building, and he didn't try to resist. He couldn't die, not now, when so much remained to be done.

It couldn't have been a coincidence that a blatant act of terrorism had occurred in the middle of his inaugural speech, after all.

* * *

 **A/N: Here's the news:**

 **I've finally got a Tumblr! It can be found at anomalycycle. tumblr. com, provided you remove the spaces. There, I'll be adding art I have made of scenes or characters, links to the music once I'm done writing it, extras to fill in the timeline or make it feel more realistic, and basically everything that I can't post here on Fanfiction. I'll be answering asks there, including in-character asks. I hope to see you there!**

 **On another note: I just realized that I never did much of a good job describing Caleb. What were you guys picturing him as looking like?**


	26. Or Hang Separately

Asriel was deep in thought.

So far, it had been exactly five days since Pence was elected president, and his reign had been comparatively quiet. There hadn't been a lot of news after his inauguration, and if he had signed any anti-monster bills it was behind closed doors.

He let his fingers move by himself as he drifted farther into thought, and as such was startled when he discovered himself to be on his email again. _Seriously?_ he thought, slightly annoyed, and then his annoyance vanished.

A new email, from the same person who had emailed him six days ago, was sitting casually in his inbox.

Asriel clicked on it.

GREETINGS.

I HAVE FAILED IN MY TASK.

WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO ATTEMPT AGAIN?

I HAVE A PERSON WITH A MOTIVE. ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS SAY YES.

Again, Asriel couldn't imagine how completely risky this was. There were so many ways that people might be trying to trick him into this...

And then a voice spoke. _If you refuse, your experience over the next few weeks will be rather unpleasant, I believe._

Asriel jumped up, knocking over his chair. "What- Who's there?" he called out frantically.

 _I'm offended now. You don't even remember me?_

Asriel froze. "C...Caleb?"

 _The one and only,_ replied the voice. _Look, you don't have anything to lose here._

"How are you... Where have you been all this time?"

 _Just because I chose to remain silent doesn't mean I haven't been here. Now respond to that email, goat child!_

"Don't call me that!"

 _Certainly, goat child._

Five seconds later: _That really got your goat, didn't it?_

* * *

"Senator McSweeney, how delightful to see you." John A. Pence stood to shake hands with the New Jersey senator.

"Likewise, Mr. President." Senator Gordon McSweeney had been one of the other main contenders for the Patriot presidential nomination; his only fault being that he had no real control on his temper. He had stepped down from the race early on- really, before his campaign had even started- to back Pence and had instead decided to run as a senator.

"I trust you did not come here for small talk."

"No." McSweeney nodded. "Senator Coughlin, Senator Featherston, and I have been having a small amount of trouble with the universal segregation bill and its passage in the Senate. As you are no doubt well aware, it passed immediately in the House, but just enough of our number are wasting time 'deliberating the issue' and how best to introduce it in, say, New England. If you were to appear and give an address to the Senate, I am sure that it would no doubt speed things up."

Pence nodded distractedly. "Yes, very well, Senator. However, I believe that the point shall be rendered moot within months."

McSweeney raised an eyebrow. "Why would that be?"

Pence grinned. "I've been working on a bill that has been my pet project since November 8th. I won't say anything now, but I can promise you that it'll be a real gas."

"Whatever you say, Mr. President." Shrugging, the senator started to leave, then turned suddenly. "Wait. You're talking about..."

"Yes, I am talking about that." Pence replied.

"But that would never pass through!" McSweeney cried. "Some terrorist who was probably a monster blew the top off the Washington Monument and they're still deliberating segregation!"

"That was because there was not evidence." Pence circumnavigated his desk to stand next to McSweeney. "Trust me, monsters will take action eventually. When they do..." He left the rest unspoken.

"Still, you should make sure to hide them well, if you do choose to do this." McSweeney noted. "No matter how much you can inflame the public against monsters, they still won't stand for what you plan."

"If you say so." Pence shrugged. "Be as it may, your absence from the Senate will be noted eventually, and I have no doubt that your colleagues will have a considerably harder time passing the segregation bill without your unparalleled verbal skills." He knew he was laying it on a little thick there, but if it would get rid of the senator so he could go back to his duties...

McSweeney shrugged again, a gesture which was beginning to become characteristic for him. "Whatever you say." he repeated. The senator turned to leave the Oval Office, and Pence returned to the draft.

 _All monsters currently residing within the United States of America and its constituent territories will be displaced from their residences to central Idaho, in order to provide for the-_

Pence sighed and set his pen down. _I must phrase this carefully. Otherwise, enough people will see through the plan, and that will be the end._

"Mr. President?"

The President of the United States of America did not hear the courier. He was deep in thought.

"Mr. President!"

Pence glanced up sharply as the courier approached him, holding out a paper. "Mr President, sir. A message. It's from Edwin Morrell."

Pence frowned. His vice-presidential selection hadn't made much contact with him since inauguration day, seeing himself as just a spare part, and as such had been attempting to act as the public face of the Patriot party as much as he could so Pence could focus on a plan for monsters. Although he had made some tentative solutions, none of them had come close to the final solution Pence had dreamed up, and realistically he wouldn't come up with it on his own. He placed the paper with the rest in a quickly growing pile and nodded his thanks to the courier.

The courier left, and a different person walked in. "Mr. President-elect, there's someone here to see you." Lowering his voice, he added, "And it's a monster."

"I see..." Pence frowned. "You know what, this could help with my public image. If the duster leaves here and tells his pals that I'm not such a bad person, they'll be more willing to do whatever we tell them to."

"What if they wish to assassinate you?"

"I am confident in my bodyguards' capabilities." Pence replied. "Send the monster in."

The monster drifted into the room, hovering above the ground. They turned to Pence, blinking large opaque eyes. "oh... hello, mr. president... my name's napstablook..."

"Hello, Napstablook." Pence took some small pride in pronouncing the monster's name correctly, and after a moment wondered why. Nevertheless, he continued, "How may I help you today?"

"oh... well..." The ghost hummed to themself briefly. "i heard you had a plan to send monsters into canada... are you going to do that... or was that just an empty campaign promise..."

"It's up in the air at the moment." Pence replied. _Don't want to alienate them whichever way they're leaning, although I doubt that they want to be sent to Canada._ "It all depends on whether Congress will put through any bills."

"i see..." Napstablook drifted silently. "well... i can't allow that, i'm afraid..."

Pence felt a trickle of unease inside.

"so... i guess i have to stop you... in the only way you'll understand..."

That was the precise moment when everything went to hell.

One of the more astute bodyguards pulled his gun on the ghost and fired, but the bullet passed right through him.

"uh... i'm a ghost... we're sorta incorporeal and all... and i'm not going to lower my health just to be nice." A stream of tear-shaped bullets spat forth from the ghost's eyes, smashing into the bodyguard's chest. He crumpled soundlessly.

Turning to Pence, Napstablook said, "well... the patriots won't be able to function without you, will they?" Ignoring the bullets passing through their body, Napstablook spewed another stream of ectoplasmic darts from their eyes at Pence. Letting out a short cry, Pence dove backwards, crashing to the floor, chair tumbling to the side. The bullets passed overheard to impact harmlessly on the wall.

"hold still... this'll be easier..." Napstablook's eyes pulsed for a moment, and the bullets spat forth, this time shaped like miniature bolts of lightning, faster and faster, drilling into the floor around Pence as the president-elect rolled on the floor, desperately dodging the bullets.

The barrage ceased. "well... that didn't do much..." The ghost drifted aimlessly. "i'll just have to keep trying, then, won't i?!"

A gunshot echoed, and Napstablook swiveled around. "i told you already, i'm incorporeal, that-"

And that was when Pence made his move. He jumped forward, yanking open the desk drawer in front of him and pulling out the last thing that Chara had given him before she left, and just as the ghost was turning around, eyes narrowed, he lunged for it and slashed the knife in a precise move through its body.

"heh, did you really think that..." The ghost's eyes widened as the deep gash Pence had made through their soul, slicing it into two pieces, finally split. "No! No! You can't!"

That was all it said.

Dust fluttered up in the air, and Pence coughed and sneezed on it.

"Mr. President! Are you alright!" That was one of the bodyguards, running to his president's side.

Pence waved him off. "I'm perfectly fine," he stated, frowning as his vision began dimming at the edges. _What's the matter with me? I didn't take any hits!_ "I'm perfectly fine," he continued, as he fell backwards, the knife slipping from his fingers.


	27. I Can't Fix You

**.I can't continue this anymore.**

 **.I interfered all I could.**

 **.I clouded their perceptions to let Napstablook go right up to Pence, and yet...**

 **.They all failed.**

 **.I can't help them anymore.**

 **.I WON'T help them anymore.**

 **.They must help themselves.**

 **.The Anomaly may have this world now, if nothing is done.**

* * *

 _I have done nothing._

 _Why haven't I done anything?_

 _Is it because I feel powerless?_

 _Is it because I am alone and afraid in this world?_

 _Regardless, I have_ _no excuse._

 _I must do something, NOW._

* * *

John A. Pence was enraged. As such, he had called a special meeting. Vice-President Edwin Morrell, Secretary of State Gabriel Semmes, Secretary of the Interior Donald Partridge, New Jersey Senator Gordon McSweeney, and Virginia Senator Jake Featherston stood around Pence's desk in the Oval Office. None of them were sure why they had been summoned, and most of them were relatively sure that they probably didn't need to come to this meeting.

 _Why did_ I _have to come to this?_ Senator Featherston wondered. _I'm just a senator among many, and quite frankly, even though McSweeney and Pence are old friends, I doubt he needed to be here either._

"I have something important to tell you all about," the president started. "It deals with national security, and as such it is of the utmost importance that you listen carefully."

Featherston shifted hesitantly. _This isn't going to be another Calcutta, is it?_

"Entirely by accident, the FBI has discovered an internal plot against the Patriot administration of the United States." Pence continued. "There is a monster named Mettaton. He... has been determined to be the one that sent that ghost to kill me several days ago. Furthermore, we utilized wiretaps in his base in Michigan and determined that he is planning more action against me. You see, he has made contact with a Soviet expat, and although we can't be sure of his motives my spies are confident that said expat is in possession of a significant amount of weapon-grade uranium. It may be a false alarm, but we cannot be too certain, especially when dealing with those creatures."

 _Again, I can't see what we're supposed to do, or why we're useful in this situation._ Featherston thought. _Sure, this is terrible and all, but what can we do about it?_

"He will be dealt with summarily, as will be his accomplices, and it is the continuing monster terrorism issue that has plagued the nation since monsters were freed which I summoned you here for." Pence finished. "Senators Featherston, McSweeney, I trust you will do your best to pass through my 'Bill Pertaining to the Future Relocation of Certain Inhabitants of the Constituent United States?'"

"Indeed." McSweeney and Featherston nodded, feeling somewhat out of place. They still felt mildly uncivilized, and both knew that they would have to spend hours filibustering to get the stubborn centrists to come to their camp, but it would be worth it in the end if it meant a monster-free nation.

"Excellent," Pence spun around in his chair. "You may leave. I have some important business to attend to."

* * *

A knock on the door sounded, and Mettaton looked up from his computer. "Ah, that must be Constantin. Show him in, please, Burgerpants."

The Soviet expat sat down across the table from Mettaton as the latter pushed his laptop aside. "Why, hello there, Constantin." The robot grinned. "You have the goods?"

Constantin nodded. "As I promised." He set the case on the table and swiveled it around. Mettaton smiled as he began to fold back the latches. "Thank you for the uranium. It will be well used, I promise."

"You could level a city with that." Constantin noted.

"Indeed." Mettaton replied, ceasing his opening of the briefcase to peer owlishly at the Russian over the top. "I do not believe that there will be any tears shed over my chosen target, considering that it will remove an incompetent, undeserving president from office. The sacrifice of the innocents will not be in vain. That I can promise." Oh, perhaps it was a little dramatic, but he was used to drama. It had been his job before Pence came to power, after all.

The briefcase opened, and Mettaton's smile cut short as he looked at what was inside. A steel, black device sat inside, a little red light flashing next to the RECORD button.

"I'm sorry, Metta." Constantin spread his arms and shrugged. "They said they'd let me get off with only a few years in prison if..."

"If you betrayed me." Mettaton's voice was hoarse. "How long will it take for them to get here?"

"Likely five seconds." replied Constantin. "This is fairly short-range, you know."

And then all hell broke loose. The door smashed to the ground, and Mettaton was greeted with a shining, silver barrel pointing at his face.

"Mettaton," stated the man in black, "you are under arrest for crimes against humanity."

* * *

It had easily been hours, possibly days, since they had dumped Mettaton into this cell and left him here to rot. If only he could abandon this body, leave it and float away in the ghost form he once had, everything would have been so much simpler.

But he had forsaken that to completely fuse with his host form, and it was something he was bitterly regretting.

 _I can't have vengeance. Not like I planned. Napstablook... Blooky... I'm so sorry._

Before he could sink into another fit of self-pity, the door opened. The man at the top of the stairs waved a hand at him. "Come on out."

"Wait, what?" Mettaton was suspicious, and naturally so. He'd seen enough TV to know that pretending to break a prisoner out and then shooting him while he tried to escape was common practice among these uncivilized beings.

"You're being transferred to another facility, along with the rest of those who were arrested from your base." the guard said. "Now, come along."

Dazedly, Mettaton followed the man down the hallway and out the prison door. He wanted nothing more than to run, to be free from this place, but he knew he couldn't if he didn't want to die.

The guard pointed to the wall bordering the prison. "Stand there." he ordered, taking a hand off his gun to wave Shyren towards Mettaton. In another time, he would have seized the chance, snatched the gun, taken control. But those days had departed with Napstablook's death, and now?

Now, there wasn't anything _to_ do.

As Burgerpants was being waved into line next to his employer, he made his move. The cat monster lashed out, slashing across the guard's face and reaching for his weapon.

He never got the chance.

The guard swung his weapon up, spitting blood, and fired a short burst through Burgerpants's stomach. He crumpled and fell to dust instantly.

"Anyone else want to have a go?" asked the guard rhetorically.

Nobody moved a muscle.

"Good. Stand still, and this'll be relatively quick."

And then the guard gestured with his free hand, and all the guards swung their weapons up and pointed them at the monsters.

 _Wait, what?!_

"Fire!"

A choking burst of gunfire rang out, slamming into the monsters and reducing them to dust. Bullet after bullet poured into Mettaton's body, and he fell to the ground, wracked with agony. _They tricked us,_ was his last thought as a bullet found his soul and split it in two. _They tricked us, god damn it._

 **A/N: I've decided that I want to have a betareader for the rest of the duration of the Anomaly Cycle. If you're interested in taking that role, please PM me.**


	28. It's You, It's Me

**...**

 **Greetings.**

 **It's you again.**

 **Back for more, no doubt.**

 **Hmm?**

 **You want to know who I am?**

 **Pathetic.**

 **Are you just pretending, or are you really that clueless...?**

 **Heh.**

 **Heh heh heh.**

 **Very well, then.**

 **Let me tell you a story, and you can ponder while you listen.**

 **Once there were two brothers. They came into possession of an entire, miniature world... and it was all theirs to manipulate.**

 **To the inhabitants of that world, they seemed as gods.**

 **The younger brother maintained his idealism and wished to allow the world to evolve on its own, to let its inhabitants live as they were, free of the control of their overruling deities. The older brother, on the other hand, argued that the world needed guidance. Secretly, however, he wished to manipulate the world to his own ends and explore all the possible outcomes.**

 **As time went on and the world was set back again and again, the elder was corrupted by his power. Soon, he realized that there was only one scenario which he had never before explored.**

 **This situation was _genocide_.**

 **And so, through his helpless puppet, he murdered and murdered and murdered until the rivers ran with dust and the world was irreparably damaged.**

 **As he neared the absolute, however, he discovered a variable he had never before been able to manipulate. Curious, he tried manipulating this variable, and his puppet was given god-like powers. The consequence of this was that his puppet broke away, and eventually took control over the world.**

 **The younger brother gloated, filling the elder with fury. Even without his puppet, he could still affect the world, and so he laid the foundations for a final solution to this now self-controlling world.**

 **And so...**

 **Do you understand now? Who I am? What I am?**

 **No?**

 **I have not made it obvious enough?**

 **Very well, then. Let us continue.**

 **What neither of the brothers knew was that their world was watched, although the watchers did not know of the existence of the brothers at first. It was only when their presence was revealed suddenly and made omniscient, when the elder reasserted his control again, that they finally knew.**

 **Yet, the brothers were not omniscient.**

 **You see, there was a higher power than those two brothers. Although they thought themselves in control, they were in reality controlled by yet another higher power. To him, they were ALL his toys, similar to how the world the brothers manipulated had been theirs. As the situations of the world did not affect him, he was free to inflict whatever misfortune he cared on the world, either through the eldest or directly by his own manipulation of the lowest world. Often, he cruelly twisted the situation even further simply to make the watchers cry out again.**

 **Hmm? Who was the third power?**

 **Pitiful. Still you haven't made the connections. Now don't interrupt me.**

 **The watchers were horrified by the brutalities inflicted on the world, and expressed their pain indirectly to the third power. He ignored their cries for mercy, because they remained closed-minded.**

 **They never considered the only free variable that both the brothers and the third power couldn't change...**

 ** _Themselves._**

 **If enough of the watchers had raised their voices, not just in distress, but in rallying cries to the third power to change his course, then he would have changed the brutalities the world went through. But they didn't, and so he didn't.**

 **Do you know what I am talking about now?**

 ** _You_ are the sole variable that could never been changed, you and your comrades. But now it's too late, and that's the only reason I can feel secure telling you this.**

 **The deaths of the two ghostly twins, and the ways they died, are the catalyst for an unstoppable reaction. Now, Pence's final solution is unavoidable, and NOTHING will stop him from carrying it out.**

 **You could have done something.**

 **You could have changed the world for the better.**

 **BUT YOU JUST WATCHED.**

 **Your punishment will be mild, as you had no way of knowing you were committing a crime. In return for your neglecting this world...**

 **I'LL TEAR IT TO BLOODY PIECES IN FRONT OF YOUR VERY EYES.**

 **AND NOTHING YOU DO WILL BE ABLE TO STOP ME.**

 **Hmm?**

 **You still don't know who I am?**

 **You want to have the mystery solved for you?**

 **Fine.**

 **Very well, then.**

 **You know the two brothers as the Anomaly and the Seraph... and I am the third power.**

 **I'll leave you with that, and the knowledge that you have truly doomed this timeline.**

 **HMM?**

 **Ha ha ha...**

 **YOU IDIOT.**

 **Do you really think that I'll let Frisk reset the timeline and mess up the perfect horror that I've created?**

 **I am the Writer, and I will not allow that to happen.**

 **Frisk will never reset in any timeline ever again, not this one, nor any that may follow it.**

 **There's my verdict, unchangeable, unshakable. Don't bother analyzing the wording. I say precisely what I mean, and attempts to glean a happy ending from my statement will only hasten the downfall.**

 **Not that it wasn't moving quickly already...**

 **Truth be told, this timeline bores me. And even a relentless killer like me can get bored of this game after a while.**

 **So, it will be my duty to do what I should have done from the start.**

 **I'll speed up Pence's process, and then...**

 **Then, the total destruction shall be complete.**


	29. But We Won't Let This Happen Again

The man had no name as of now. The identity card he carried proclaimed his name to be David Reid, as did the fake driver's license.

Really, his name was Robert D. Bloom, and he was here for one reason and one reason only.

That reason was to kill the President of the United States.

Like that unfortunate monster who'd been killed some time before attempting to escape prison, Bloom had also obtained some nuclear material. The yield was several hundred kilotons, although knowing his luck it'd probably malfunction and give off much less of a blast than he was expecting.

Bloom was sitting in a cafe down the road from the White House. Calmly he raised a cup of coffee to his lips. He had no worries, and why should he? The "supply truck" which he'd parked around the corner had been perfectly disguised, and if someone broke in, well, the back was quite well sealed. Besides, despite the city noise, he could almost certainly hear them from where he was sitting.

Sitting down the empty cup, Bloom strode confidently from the cafe. Why should be bother paying? The place would be incinerated or blasted apart in a few minutes, anyway.

* * *

"Mr. President."

Pence looked up from the papers strewn on his desk to find Morrell standing in front of him. "Yes, Edwin? What is it?" He couldn't help from grinning. "Did my little bill get passed through?"

"No." replied Morrell, a taciturn expression on his face. "It failed at 29-71."

"Only _twenty-nine_ senators voted for it?" hissed Pence. "More than half of our Senators would have had to cross party lines in order for that to happen."

"Nevertheless, they did," Morrel continued, "and that was because they will not stand for _outright genocide!_ "

Pence froze. Inside, all he could think, no, _scream_ was _no, no, how did they find out, I hid it perfectly among the complicated wording, they never could have..._ but on the outside he remained calm and said, "Why not? They're monsters."

"I will not stand for genocide either!" Morrell slammed his hand down on the desk. "Dammit, Pence, we're Patriots, not Nazis! You promised me that they were being sent to Idaho for relocation so they wouldn't harm any humans!"

"So I did." Pence's grin was unnerving. "Then again, Edwin, you seem to have forgotten something. _I'm the one in charge here. And you?_ " he continued, tilting his head. _"You're useless and disposable. You've outgrown your usefulness, Edwin, and now it's time for you to go._ " His hand inched inside the secret drawer, feeling for the handle of the knife.

Morrell didn't panic, to his credit. "You can't get away with this, Pence. They've already drawn up the impeachment procedures, and it's a matter of time before you leave office. Whether it's against your will won't matter, and if I were you I'd resign right now."

With a sharp cry, Pence pulled the knife from the drawer. " _You won't take this country from me, you son of a bitch!"_ he shouted, lunging forwards to plunge the knife into Morrell's heart.

* * *

Robert D. Bloom knew that his attack was going to kill him, and had made no bones about it to himself. He welcomed it, almost. At least he wouldn't feel anything. Just a quick burst of heat and it would be over.

 _It's time to end this._

He made his way around the back of the truck and fumbled his keys out. He jabbed the key into the lock and turned mechanically, then pushed the door open with a soft grunt.

Dropping the keys- he wouldn't need them, after all, and they'd be incinerated in the blast anyway- Bloom hopped into the back of the truck and stood before the bomb. It was a thing of beauty, marred though it was from its slow journey and assembly.

And now?

Now, it was time for it to serve its purpose.

Smiling fondly, Bloom gently patted the side of the bomb as he reached for the detonator.

 _I should say something,_ he realized, as his finger found the switch. _But what?_

And then he knew.

"Justice!" he shouted, and pressed down hard on the switch.

* * *

As Pence lunged forwards for his vice president, the blast slammed into them both and catapulted them into the wall. The fireball had just missed the room by sheer luck, but the point was rendered moot as the shockwave extended far past that.

Pence felt his spine snap with a sickening _crunch_ and felt blood drip from his body. He managed to twist his head, but that was all.

The President of the United States whimpered in frustration, since there was nothing else he could do.

 **A/N: Didn't expect _that,_ did you?**


	30. Disappointment

Asriel was sitting on the couch in the living room. A morose feeling of hopeless depression washed over him, and he let out a melancholy sigh.

 _You know what's strange?_ Caleb asked suddenly.

 _What?_ Asriel responded.

 _All of this._ By now, Caleb had mastered the art of projecting himself in Asriel's mind however he wished, and here he shrugged. _I gotta admit, you're being a lot more passive than I expected you to be._

Asriel raised an eyebrow. _What do you mean by that?_

 _I mean, I thought that the instant I gave you my soul, you'd blast the entire hotel to pieces, and damn the consequences as long as Pence dies._

 _It's not..._ Unsuccessful with his attempt to form the response he was hoping for, Asriel sighed. _It's just not that simple! There was still Edwin Morrell, off somewhere else, and we didn't know what he would have done as president! Nobody knew, really. He was just... there._

 _Well, now it's too late._ Caleb drifted aimlessly. _Nothing to be done now but wait._

"What're you two talking about?" Frisk asked suddenly.

Asriel flinched in surprise; he hadn't noticed her coming into the room. "Huh?"

"I can tell you're talking to Caleb about something because you always get that glazed expression when you are." she explained. "So what were you guys talking about?"

Before Asriel could say anything, his eyes flickered to yellow as Caleb took control. "We were discussing the benefits and disadvantages of temporary pacifism despite our current state and its inherent abilities."

Asriel's eyes changed back to their normal green. He attempted to glare at Caleb, but it's hard when the person you're trying to glare at doesn't exactly have a physical body. To his credit, though, he did try.

 _Hey, what's that look for? I did make you look smarter than you really are in front of Frisk. You should be happy._ Caleb's voice took on a slight bitter hint.

 _Damn you, Caleb, that's not... You know full well what this is about._

 _And if I do?_ Caleb grinned.

 _If you really wanted to you could mess everything up!_

 _I could,_ contemplated Caleb, tapping a finger against his chin, his grin growing. _I could... but I'm probably not going to._ he finished, dropping the smile. The stark juxtaposition between the cheery facade he'd put up before and the morose, somber expression he had replaced it with was startling, to say the least. _What's there to gain? Nothing, in this state._

Closing his eyes, Asriel shook his head. _Nothing to gain for either of us._

Frisk had quite clearly noticed their conversation, but chose not to comment on it for whatever reason she had, knowing full well what it was like to have another person inside your head.

An awkward silence filled the room.

 _Try some casual banter,_ Caleb suggested.

 _What? What are you talking about?_

 _Just what it sounds like._ he replied, slumping back against a nonexistent wall. _Fact is, you and I both know full well what's going on here._

 _Is it really that obvious?_

 _Yeah, or at least to me. Well? You going to do something?_

 _What,_ now?

 _Now or never, considering the scenario._

Asriel took a deep breath. Turning to Frisk, he said, "You, uh... you look really nice, today." He instantly regretted it, and his blush showed brightly against his face.

"Was that flirting I heard?" Frisk responded, giggling.

"Th... uh... I was not!" he tried desperately. _Thanks a lot, Caleb._

 _You're welcome._

"Was too!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

With a sigh, Asriel gave up. He knew perfectly well that Frisk had the abilities to keep these shenanigans up for hours on end.

"I knew it," Frisk smirked. "Who would be able to resist me?" she asked, giggling.

Asriel's eyes flickered to yellow again. "I would," Caleb said.

"Oh, shut up Caleb!" Frisk exclaimed.

"You really have to stop doing that." Asriel told him. _I will get you for this later,_ he added.

 _Whatever,_ Caleb responded.

Frisk moved onto the couch next to Asriel and lightly punched his arm. "I knew you were flirting," she said triumphantly. "I was kind of... uh..." She smiled at Asriel, blushing, seemingly unaware of how to proceed.

Asriel took a short, sharp breath and leaned towards her. _Now or never, I guess._ Frisk's eyes widened, and she began to lean towards him.

Floorboards creaked, and suddenly, Toriel walked into the living room.

Frisk and Asriel whipped around to look at her. "Uhh," they said at the same time. Their faces had gone deep red.

"Do you two need some privacy?" Toriel asked.

"No, we're good," Frisk spoke up, blushing profusely.

Asriel was completely red and he kept his mouth closed.

"You two look cute together," Toriel said, smiling.

Asriel and Frisk then noticed Undyne standing behind Toriel, slumped against the wall. _Where'd she come from?_ Asriel wondered, and then decided that it didn't really matter.

"Don't worry, your secret's safe with me," she said, suppressing laughter. "Alphys is going to love this..." she continued.

Before anyone could say anything else, Undyne's phone started beeping, and she raised it to her ear. "Hello?" she answered. She listened for a few minutes. Her face went ghostly pale, but after a few minutes it settled into a slight grin. "Yeah... Thanks." With a sigh, she set down her phone.

"So, I have some good news and some bad news, and I don't care which one you want to hear first, I'm telling them in the order I want." she said. "Bad news, a nuclear bomb went off in central D.C.- terrorists, almost certainly."

"What good could come out of that?" Asriel asked. He had a feeling that he knew where he was going, but he pushed down the tiny spark of hope. _Don't get too hopeful, it probably didn't happen..._

"Well, our distinguished president," Undyne continued, "is missing, as is his vice-president."

Frisk blinked. She seemed as if she couldn't figure out whether to laugh or cry, and settled for both. Asriel wrapped his arms around her and did his best to keep his expression blank.

 _This is the end of everything,_ Caleb spoke at last, and Asriel didn't realize what he meant until several days later.

* * *

Corporal Neville Porter, for the first time in his life, was scared.

Despite the anti-radiation suits he and his crew were wearing, he couldn't help but think that something was bound to go wrong. If one of them had put on any part of their suit wrong, and enough radiation was able to seep through... Then they'd have to turn back, and the desperate, increasingly-futile search for the President of the United States would fail.

He shuddered at the thought. If Pence was dead... This would be the first time an American president had been assassinated by an act of nuclear terrorism. Hell, this was the first example of nuclear terrorism in the United States, period. Once the perpetrators were caught, there would be hell to pay for them, that would be for sure. A good chunk of the nation's capital was wiped off the map, thousands had been killed and thousands more injured, lying screaming for help in the charred rubble, radiation was drifting over a good deal of southeastern Maryland, and the stocks had already begun to crash.

Oh, yes, there would be hell to pay for the terrorists.

His group was walking down the charred remnants of Pennsylvania Avenue towards the White House, or what was left of it, anyway. From their vantage point, there wasn't much left. Expanding out from the blast crater, pieces of fused, melted metal protruded from the ground, a twisted metal hunk that could have been a car swept up against the back of the remains of a concrete wall. The blasted, twisted shadow of a child had been permanently burned onto the wall, their one moment of agony immortalized.

Corporal Porter shivered again, and beckoned his group towards the rubble of the White House. If there was anything left of the president or vice-president, it'd be in there.

One of them- his name was Richard, or something like that- tripped over a piece of rubble as they moved towards the shattered stone edifice, and Porter automatically reached out a hand to steady him. "Careful, kid." he cautioned, his voice distorted through the communications unit. "Don't want to rip your suit open."

Richard's eyes widened behind his mask, and at first Porter thought he was just reacting to his statement until he pointed at the White House and shouted, "Look! Look!"

"What is it?" Porter swung around.

"There's something- here!" Richard was already moving towards the rubble, and with a sigh Porter followed him. "Damn kid's breaking protocol." he muttered, the thought that he could get them all killed crossing his mind immediately afterwards.

Richard shoved his way past a scorched, twisted thing that might have once been a metal window frame and pointed at the ground. "Look!" he repeated, his expression unreadable.

Neville Porter stared at the distorted bodies on the floor. The flesh had been badly burned on both of them, making them nearly unrecognizable, and their clothing and hair had been charred completely off.

One of the bodies was holding some melted metallic object that had fused to its hand. It was facing away from the blast, leaving enough of its face still intact for it to be recognizable.

Behind Porter, one of the other kids started making sounds like he was going to puke. He ignored them, bending down over the body of President John A. Pence.

"Well done, kid." Porter said gruffly to Richard. "Ya found the president, so that-"

"No, you don't understand." Richard gesticulated wildly at the body. "He- he's-"

And then the body twitched and let out an agonized, barely-audible screech.

Porter's eyes opened wide, and he thumbed the contact over to the other team. "Boys, get over here! We got the president, and he's alive!"

* * *

In an undisclosed location, Speaker of the House Alvar O'Brien paced like a caged animal, which was precisely how he felt.

He'd been nervous ever he was told about the nuclear explosion and hustled underground, and for the first time in his life he was terrified.

 _What happened? Clearly the terrorist knew perfectly well when to time it when Morrell was visiting the White House, which makes me think there's some kind of conspiracy behind this all. I doubt monsters would do this, though- they're not stupid, and besides, they'd just use magic to accelerate the nuclear blast and wipe out the whole damn capital. Humans obviously did this... but why?_

It was a puzzle that O'Brien doubted would ever be solved, at least not by him.

The door opened, and a nondescript man in a black suit walked through the door. "Sir." He saluted.

O'Brien nodded. "Yes, what is it?" he asked impatiently.

The man dipped his head. "The bodies of President Pence and Vice-President Morrell have been found, or what's left of them, anyway. Pence is alive, but he's been paralyzed from the neck down and severely burned. He's in no condition to lead this country, and as Morrell is dead that leaves you next in the line of succession."

Everything seemed to blur around the Speaker of the House, and he slowly nodded. "I... I see." He hadn't expected anything else, but now that it was happening everything felt unreal, as if it was in a haze around him.

 _I am in command now._

 _I am in command of this nation._

 _One thing for sure, though: I won't make the same mistakes as Pence would have. We_ can _have peace in this age, despite what some may think. It will be difficult, and I wouldn't expect any less, but we will prevail, and peace will be had._

* * *

 **I feel as if I'm fading away.**

 **I feel as if I'm fading away and nobody cares.**

 **And yet I have to keep that idiotic smile on my face, because nobody likes me when I shriek, and they question my sanity again and again anyway.**

 **I wish I could go back to the simpler times, but that's impossible. Even if I could go back then, what would I do differently? How would I...?**

 **Well, that doesn't matter, and you don't want to listen to me rant about that anyway.**

 **There's only one foolproof remedy now, and that's pouring out all my hate and depression and anger into this world.**

 **You say, "Why are you doing this?"**

 **You say, "What joy do you get out of your twisted murders?"**

 **You say, "Don't you feel the same pain that we do from the despicable acts you commit?"**

 **There is pain for me as well.**

 **DO YOU THINK I DON'T REGRET DOING THIS?**

 **DO YOU THINK I DON'T REGRET TEARING APART THE LIVES OF THE CHARACTERS I'VE GROWN TO CARE FOR?**

 **DO YOU THINK I DON'T REGRET ANY OF THIS?**

 **DO YOU... Do you really think that I'm doing this just to crush your hopes and dreams?**

 **You probably do.**

 **Heh.**

 **Well, I'm not one to tell you about the truth. Can't until after the downfall, when vitality has been restored, and even then it'll be after the endless campaign when the truth finally comes out, just like it always does. I'll be there, watching, and keeping a hand in events. See if you can spot me before I reveal myself.**

 **You'll see me then.**

 **You'll see the truth then.**

 **You'll see.**

 **You'll see just what's going on here.**

 **You'll see why I'm doing this.**

 **You'll see why I've ever done anything that I've ever done here.**

 **You'll see... someday.**

 **See you then.**


	31. Reconstitution

**There is one person.**

 **One person who will never have a happy ending.**

 **He always tried his best. He always tried to live up to the expectations that were put forth for him. He tried to fix things the best way he could, but his efforts only came to failure.**

 **Now he lives a lonely, captured, desperate life, one with no chance or hope of freedom. No happy endings will ever find him. All he can do is try to salvage what he can of the life he once had.**

 **You know who I'm talking about, or at least you think you do.**

 **Well, I won't bother you with my rantings anymore. You don't want that, do you? You just want to see what comes next.**

 **But I will be back.**

 _ **I will be back.**_

 **I can promise you that.**

* * *

Alvar O'Brien fidgeted nervously. Running a finger around the inside of his collar, he couldn't help but wonder what lay ahead of him. He had dreamed, once or twice, of being the president, but that was back when he was a young, idealistic senator.

He wouldn't be able to live in the White House as he had dreamed of; even if he tried he'd be killed by the radiation in the ruins. No, that was out of the question, and Congress had already been relocated to a location even he didn't know where it was. He himself would be sent to Camp David temporarily until something else was worked out, and the place would be under maximum security.

Nevertheless, the future stretched out before him, and he was ready.

Setting his hand on the Bible, he intoned solemnly, "I, Alvar Jacob O'Brien, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

 _I want peace between the races, and I know the perfect way to carry it out. It won't be easy, and I'll probably be opposed by a good deal of Congress, including more than half of my own party, judging by precedent, but I will make this work._

 _I will make this work. I will make my final solution work as all the other attempts did not._

* * *

Consciousness was gradually returning to the fallen man who had once been president. He only knew pain, etching itself all over his less damaged nerves, and his vision was awful. He could barely see a thing.

"...awful thing." he heard someone, presumably a nurse, saying. "But even if he did do some terrible things, he is still the former president, and we owe him this much."

 _Former president_ was all Pence's scarred ears heard, and he tried desperately to move something, to shout and scream in fury at this turn of events, but all he could do was flex his jaw muscles and make a weak moaning noise.

"Oh, so-" And then a shout. "What the hell is that thing? Get it out of here!"

"hOI!"

That voice was most definitely not a nurse.

"i"M teMMIe!" screeched the voice incomprehensibly. Pence felt pressure on his chest, and then a weird cat-dog-like creature peered at him, vibrating intensely. "Uwawawawa! h00man... so UGLY!"

Pence would have liked to tell it off, asking it if it would look so good after being in an explosion, but he couldn't even flex his middle finger.

Suddenly, there was a swelling sensation on his throat. _What?_ he thought stupidly, as his vision clouded with red and his windpipe constricted. _What's happening?_

And the last thing that former President John. A Pence ever heard in his life as his windpipe was constricted by hives (or h0IVES, if you prefer), was the thing saying, "oH No! h00man aLLergic to TeM!"

* * *

Speaker of the House- now President- Alvar O'Brien was beaming all over his big face, noted former Secretary of the Interior Gabriel Semmes bitterly. _This bill was_ my _baby, dammit,_ thought the former Cabinet member sourly, _and he's going to go and f- muck it all up._

"I said, universal segregation won't be necessary." repeated O'Brien, continuing to grin.

"What do you mean, it won't be-" Semmes was fuming.

"Just what I meant." O'Brien continued grinning that infuriating grin. "We don't need to separate them as you plan. I've got a different plan."

Rage blinded Semmes. "I won't let you do this, you son of a-" He swung hard even as he was speaking, and his fist smashed into O'Brien's face.

The president fell backwards against the wall, just barely catching himself to stop from falling. "Amusing." he noted. "I could have you arrested for this, Gabriel. Think I will, as a matter of fact."

"Go to hell!" Semmes swung again, but this time O'Brien was expecting it and sidestepped neatly. "You may as well give up." he said calmly. "I can do this all day."

"Go- to- HELL!" repeated Semmes defiantly.

"As you wish." In one smooth motion, President O'Brien brought his foot up in a sweeping arc and slammed it into Semmes's groin. With a groan, the former Secretary of the Interior crumpled to the floor.

"Could that be defined as cheating?" O'Brien murmured. "Perhaps. But I am the President of the United States, and I will not be brought low by the likes of you."

Wracked with agony, Semmes could only watch as O'Brien walked to the doorway and called in his guard. He could only hears snatches of conversation: "very dangerous... attacked me... prison..."

 _That was a mistake._ thought Semmes, but unfortunately it was several minutes too late to do anything about it.


	32. The Beginning of the End

Rustling reached Asriel's ears, and he bolted upright in bed. _What's going on? Who is that?_

 _Well, first things first._ He twisted to glance at the clock. It was 3:30 in the morning.

 _Who the hell would be up so early?_ Asriel thought, but he suspected he already knew.

 _Yeah._ Caleb affirmed grimly. _Most likely her._

Picking his way down the stairs, Asriel couldn't help but wonder what motive she would have for being awake at this time of night. Would it...?

 _No._ He pushed that thought far away and continued towards the kitchen. Light emitted from the kitchen doorway, and he cautiously made his way towards it.

Frisk was standing there, her hands behind her back. A single tear ran from the corner of her eye.

"Frisk? What's going on?" Asriel asked uncertainly.

"I was hoping you would come down." Frisk choked out. She looked like she was on the verge of tears. "It's time to end this and stop the suffering of monsterkind."

"Time to... Frisk, Pence is dead, and from what I've heard O'Brien has always been much more moderate." Asriel took a careful step towards her. "It won't be the best life we could have had, but the greater part of the terror is over. We can finally try to have a happy ending."

"But at what cost?" Frisk replied. "Almost everyone I care about is dead." She lifted her chin. "But... We can make things better. We can try again, and we'll know what to do this time."

"We can't reset." Asriel furrowed his brow. "You gave up that power to save me."

 _I don't like where this is going..._ Caleb sighed. _I'm..._ And then he was suddenly silent.

 _Caleb?_ Asriel asked, unease curling in his stomach.

And then Caleb burst out, _SHIT! Asriel, give me control, now!_

 _But why-_

 _JUST DO IT!_ thundered Caleb.

"There is a way we can go back." Frisk shifted her arms. "Whatever being has the most determination in this world will have the ability to save, reset, and so on. We both know that."

"Right..." _I still don't see where she's going with this._

 _You will in a moment,_ Caleb affirmed grimly. _Now give... me... bloody... control!_

Slowly, Frisk moved her hands out from behind her back.

She was holding a knife.

"This is the easiest way to set everything right." Frisk's hands were shuddering; her tears flowing freely now. "I'll try to make this quick."

 _WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?_ Caleb was clearly freaking out, the remnant of his soul pulsing sharply, the yellow turning a sickly vomit-like color. _GIVE ME CONTROL!_

But Asriel was paralyzed. Eyes widened in panic, he could do nothing as Frisk raised the knife to her throat.

 _GIVE! ME! CONTROL!_ Caleb screamed.

And suddenly Asriel's body was moving, yet it wasn't him. Seconds before Frisk slit her own throat, Asriel's eye flashed bright yellow as he slammed his hand to the side, and the knife went flying into the floor. Frisk fell forwards, sobbing, and Asriel caught her.

 _You're welcome,_ managed Caleb, clearly still panicked from his friend's near-suicide.

Asriel held Frisk in his arms as she cried freely. His shirt was already damp, and yet he made no effort to change to a more comfortable position.

"Why...?" Frisk choked out between sobs. "Why couldn't you just let me do this?"

Initially Asriel had no response, and suddenly he found his voice. "Because I care about you, Frisk, more than anybody else."

Frisk clung to him and cried, and Asriel joined her as he realized all that had been lost.

Only Caleb remained silent. Trapped in a dark, motionless void, he had been uncertain for some time whether he had already gone mad and was imagining everything.

Only now did he realize that he couldn't have.

If he hadn't been...

Things would be different.

 _Very, very different._

* * *

The complete text of Alvar O'Brien's bill sat in Senator Gordon McSweeney's hand, but he had only needed a cursory scan to realize what it entailed. _O'Brien, you magnificent bastard,_ he thought, setting it down on the table. _Still... best to make sure..._

"This seems to resemble in form John A. Pence's bill of several days ago," McSweeney told President O'Brien carefully, ensuring his voice remained neutral.

"Only in form." O'Brien replied. "While both our bills involved relocating monsters from around the country to central Idaho, the reasoning behind each is different."

McSweeney crossed his arms. "Please enlighten me, then, as I fail to see this difference you mention."

O'Brien laughed. "Simple, isn't it? In the metaphorical fallout from the DC bomb, monsters will be blamed because they're a convenient scapegoat. Monsters they may be, but they don't deserve to be executed _en masse_ in the horrific witch hunts that will surely follow soon; indeed, in the Deep South they've begun already. Thus, we shall relocate them to Idaho by telling them it's for their own protection, and we won't have to put up with them consorting with humans. As I said, it's childishly simple."

"And you don't think they'll see through it."

"Oh. come off it." With a short sigh, O'Brien crossed to the other side of the room and stared out the window. "They're monsters. Of course they won't. Anyway, this is for their own good. It's for everyone's own good."

"What about..." McSweeney hesitated for a moment. "What about the Dreemurrs, or any other family that has taken in a human child?"

O'Brien frowned. "Now there is a matter I had not contemplated. To be perfectly honest, the girl seems to be content, and if she wishes to be a monster then we can let her be one all she wants."

"Nobody, nobody at all, is going to agree with that," McSweeney replied instantly, "except about ten senators."

"Well, it is a special case..." O'Brien muttered, and then, "Fine. I will let Congress decide the issue, but if I need to give an executive order to ensure that she will be among the monsters sent to Idaho, then I shall."


	33. Redemption

"No, no, _no!_ " raged the Seraph. Perhaps this would seem a bit out of character for him in retrospect, but at the moment he didn't really care. All he knew was rage, _rage, blinding rage at what his brother had managed to pull off..._

"Dammit!" He wanted nothing more than to pick up that infuriating computer and throw it across the room, but to do so would be to give victory to the Anomaly, and he would never let that happen.

"I can't watch this. I can't let them all die! I can't let this happen!" He had dropped his traditional, imposing format without even realizing it in favor of what he really was: a scared child, afraid of letting an entire world be destroyed.

"No... NO!" Force entered his voice. "I can't stop this, but I _can_ undo it! And when I do, then the stage will be set for _me_ to take control!"

Reassuring himself, the Seraph continued. "This game I will lose. But the next..."

And when he spoke again he had taken on his god-like voice without realizing it.

 **.The next I will win.**

* * *

"Most interesting," the Anomaly mused, euphoria at success, the hope that the world would be back in his control soon, only slightly subdued by his surprise at O'Brien's actions.

"Where I had to assert control over Pence to force him to set up concentration camps, O'Brien went ahead and did it without me even telling him to. He is a wild card, and one I shall watch with great interest."

Chuckling, the Anomaly turned to the glowing screen. O'Brien sat there, alone in the Oval Office, contemplative as was the Anomaly.

"I won't even need to hack his files like with Pence. And speaking of which... I think it's time I paid him a visit."

* * *

John A. Pence saw nothing but darkness.

 _What happened?_ he thought, unable to see. _I... I... I was president. I was... I was... in a hospital? And then what?_

And then the full force of all the memories slammed back into him with the force of a freight train.

"NO, NO, **NO!** " he screamed blindly into the void. "I wanted to avenge Chara, but not like this! What did I... _What did I do?_ "

"Just what I told you to."

Pence whirled around. A figure of a child, really more like twelve or thirteen years old, wearing a white hoodie, stood there.

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded, but he suspected he already knew.

"I am the Anomaly." The child's voice turned vicious. "I am your master."

"You... YOU!" Pence roared. _"You were the reason I did all that?!"_

"Indeed." The Anomaly grinned disconcertingly. "I have controlled you ever since I realized you would be a malleable puppet. _And you went along without even realizing I controlled you. Nobody realized it..._ "

"And this... I wanted vengeance, but not like that!" Pence screamed, tears streaming down his face. " _You did this to me! You made me a destroyer of worlds!"_

"And if anyone knew, would they believe you?" The Anomaly suddenly appeared right in front of him, and the former president stumbled backward. "No. They'd just think you were trying to garner sympathy at the last moment. If anyone knew, they'd say that you've already crossed the moral event horizon and somebody's just trying to paint you in a good light for whatever twisted reason. _They won't believe a word of it._ Golly, if I hadn't been the one to take control of you I wouldn't believe it myself!"

Pence quivered with pent-up rage. _I need to do something! I need to try to redeem what it made me do somehow!_

"Fact is," continued the Anomaly pleasantly, "I've grown tired of you, John, and you're an incompetent puppet at best. But now? Now, it's time for me to have lots of fun!"

"No!" Pence charged at the Anomaly, clearly surprising it. With a gasp it toppled backwards, and Pence smashed his fist into its face. "You sick son of a bitch! I'll make you pay for this!"

"Ha!" The Anomaly raised a hand, and the text "gasterblasterslowed" barely registered in Pence's mind before a leering, skull-like thing appeared and fired a beam of white light at him.

A green glow illuminated the area around Pence. At first he wasn't sure what was going on, and then he gasped as a blue stick-like thing appeared in his hand.

 _How the hell is this supposed to help me?_ Pence screamed internally, holding the stick at the light.

The beam smashed into the stick and pulsed against it but didn't pass through it, and Pence held it steady as the beam roared and roared on.

Seeming bored, the Anomaly snapped its fingers, and the skull-thing vanished. "That's quite enough of that," it snarled. "Kindness is your trait? Who would've thought it from a man like you?"

" _I am not what you tried to make me!_ " Pence snapped, trying to move forward to hit the... that _thing_ but remaining rooted in place.

* * *

With a sudden burst, the Seraph realized that something was happening. Something very interesting.

"What's this, then?" In the void of the game's code, something was happening. _John A._ _Pence,_ of all people, was fighting the Anomaly, and what was even stranger was that his soul was green.

*I am not what you tried to make me!

Realization slashed through the Seraph. _W... The Anomaly was controlling him all this time? Damn... I had this all wrong. Might as well step in and lend a hand, eh?_

* * *

In a sudden burst of light, a figure in a black hoodie appeared next to Pence.

"Who the hell are you?" Pence snarled. _If it's another one of those things trying to kill me again..._

"You may call me 'the Seraph.' I'm the one who's going to get you out of this hell." replied the figure, raising a hand and then bringing it down. With a sharp _ping_ noise, the green glow around Pence changed to dark blue, and orange flickered briefly in the Seraph's chest before turning to blue.

"What did you just-" was all Pence had time to get out before he started falling.

Numbers, numbers flickering all around him as he fell, and images as well. He saw a skeleton wearing a blue hoodie lying against the wall of some dirty building, a ground sodden in blood, a squad of soldiers raising weapons to their shoulders and firing, a monster in a red hoodie with a bullet hole in it crying before raising its head and screaming as a pulse of red light blasted out from it, and so much more, but they flickered by too fast, until he thought he was going mad from the flow...

And then it was over, and he was lying on the ground choking harshly. The Seraph was standing a few feet in front of him, staring at a black box surrounded by white light. A simple line of blocky white text beneath it read: "FUN: 93."

"What's all this about?" Pence asked, gingerly pulling himself to his feet.

"This is the FUN value." the Seraph explained. "It stands for 'Functional Universe Number,' and in addition to many other things it controls influence and contact between the timelines. Unfortunately, changing this timeline's FUN value won't do much since it's almost at the apex anyway, but what I can do is change it for the next timeline." Snapping its fingers, the Seraph glared at the box, and a second line of text, this time in yellow, appeared, reading "NEXT: 66."

Pence had several questions, but the first one that burst out was, "What do you mean, this timeline's at the 'apex?'" He hadn't understood most of the timeline stuff, but he understood enough to know that the Seraph was basically forsaking this world. "Can't you try to make it better _now?"_

"I could," conceded the Seraph, "but if I did the Anomaly would eliminate it immediately. It's only small changes like these that will go unnoticed."

"And why did you bring me here?" Pence snapped. "I... I'm beyond forgiveness."

The Seraph's eyes flickered orange for a moment. "You will take responsibility for what you were forced to do without even knowing you were controlled? Some would call that noble, but I call it stupid. You had no control, but if it makes you feel any better the task I have for you could count as redemption."

"What about the next... timeline?" Pence asked.

"In the next? If it comes, I'll preserve what I can of your memories, assuming that the timeline is RESET by the right person. I can't just do it myself, and neither should I." The Seraph shrugged. "We have these rules for a reason. It will all depend on who brings everything back to zero and when it goes back to."

Pence still didn't understand what the Seraph had said and switched back to the original topic. "You had something for me to do?"

"Yes." The Seraph nodded. "I need you to contact someone who's been missing for a long time while I distract my... the Anomaly."

"Fine. Fine." Pence nodded. "What do I do?"

"I'll try to pull you back down into the game as long as I can." the Seraph replied. "You'll recognize him immediately: a tall skeleton wearing a blue hoodie. He faked his death to plot revenge against... well, you, to put it bluntly, and the fact that his brother is dead doesn't help things. You just need to tell him three words: 'You must return.'"

"And that's it? It's that easy?" From his years of maneuvering in the political system, Pence knew there had to be a catch.

"Well, I can't draw off my own soul for that power. Not only would I end up destroying the timeline, but it..." Frowning, the Seraph scratched its chin. "Put it this way: My soul exists on a completely different level from this universe, and I can't just draw energy from it. So... I'll need yours. This is going to destroy you for what's left of this timeline."

Pence didn't need to think it over. "I'll do it." he replied.

"Very well, then." The Seraph clicked his fingers. "See you in the next timeline, Pence. I'll make sure the Anomaly doesn't take over next time."

And then everything around Pence degenerated into a whirling morass, the winds smashing into him and tearing at his face until he felt like he was being ripped apart.

The Seraph watched the void close, then turned to the file. He had some editing to do.

* * *

Ethereal, ghost-like, Pence drifted aimlessly. Apathy clouded him. _What was I here for?_ He tried to remember, but couldn't.

And then he saw him.

A monster, sitting up against a wall. A skeleton, to be precise, wearing a tattered, faded blue hoodie. His sunken face was that of someone who had been through hell and back.

 _That's why I'm here._ Pence jolted into action. "You!" he shouted.

The skeleton turned its head towards him, apathy slowing its movement. "WHAT?" it shouted, and then a flicker of recognition in its eyes.

Pence could feel his soul fracturing within him and hurriedly plunged on, "You must return!"

"W-"

And then Pence felt himself bursting apart from the inside out. There was a single moment of clarity in which he thought, _This isn't so painful after all,_ and then the green pieces of his soul shattered and scattered across the void, joining what remained of his sister in a place beyond revival.


	34. Exodus

Asriel didn't know how many days it had been since Frisk tried to kill herself, but one thing was for certain: for some reason, she hated him for it.

It wasn't like she had come right out and told him, but it was pretty obvious considering the withering looks she would give him when Toriel's back was turned. It made Asriel want to break down in tears sometimes, but it was better to have her be alive and hate his guts over having her dead.

And yet... sometimes, that nasty little voice in the back of his head (not Caleb), the one he thought he'd left behind when he stopped being Flowey, would say things.

Things like, _You should have just let her die. Then you could have absorbed her soul, and you'd almost certainly have enough determination to reset. You might even have been able to go back far enough to save Chara, too..._

But nothing was certain in this world. What if he had let her die and taken her soul, and it still wasn't enough determination to reset? Caleb didn't have much determination- justice souls were mostly devoid of it- and he had already acknowledged this. If... if he...

But nothing could be done now. Asriel was trapped in his own special hell, with no hope for escape.

And now he was lying on the couch, eyes closed, musing about... about what? What was there to think about in a world where he had nothing left? Sans, Papyrus, his father, and Caleb were all dead, and Frisk hated him. If anybody was going to die next, he hoped it would be him.

The doorbell rang, and Asriel's eyes snapped open. _Where... What...?_ He knew without even looking in a mirror that his eyes had turned yellow.

 _Calm down,_ Caleb snapped. _Jeez, you really have been on edge lately._

"I've got it." Frisk walked past him across the room towards the door, glaring at him sideways as she went, and with a heavy sigh Asriel slumped back down. _Does she really hate me that much?_

 _Well, she's, uh, very determined about this._ Caleb pointed out. _Best I can think is that she thinks she failed everyone, especially you, by not being strong or fast enough, and now she's channeling her guilt into hatred, not just towards you but also herself. That's not very healthy..._

Asriel started, then chuckled hollowly. _Well, who'd have known you to be a psychologist?_

 _Heh._ Caleb sighed. _My sociopathy is a self-diagnosis, ya know. I didn't want to have to put up with counselling sessions and all that bullshit, so I ended up studying it myself to find out whether I really was a sociopath. Gave me something to do, at least._

Frisk looked through the peephole at the door, and then spun around with her eyes widened in fright. "Mom! It's... It looks like these are government people...!"

Toriel rushed to the door, gently pushing Frisk aside, and looked through the hole. "Why on earth would they be here?"

Asriel could see his mother's hand shaking as she turned the latch and opened the door.

Three government agents were standing there.

"Greetings," said one of them, stepping in front of his colleagues. "Have you heard about President O'Brien's Monster Protection Plan?"

Asriel got up from the couch and walked slowly to stand beside his mother. _What the hell are they talking about?_

"The what?" Toriel asked, furrowing her brow.

"As you know, ever since the bomb went off in the capital, anti-monster sentiment has been on the rise." replied the agent. "In light of this, President O'Brien has devised a plan to protect monsters from persecution by relocating them to ten exclusively-monster towns which have been formed in Idaho and Ohio. Relocation, I'm afraid, is mandatory."

"And how do we know that you're not going to just kill us?" Asriel demanded, forgetting himself for a moment. "This-"

Suddenly his eyes closed, and he could feel them burning yellow as Caleb took control. _SHUT UP!_ hissed Caleb. _If they're genuinely trying to be helpful, you're going to piss them off, and if they ARE going to kill us, then you'll tip them off that you're onto them! You stand nothing to gain from this!_

 _I... Right._ Asriel sighed and opened his eyes, desperately hoping they had reverted back to their normal green. "Sorry. Continue."

The government agent adjusted his suit. "There is nothing to fear. As I stated already..." There was a condescending tone in his voice as he went on. "This is only for your protection."

Asriel wanted nothing more than to summon balls of fire into each hand, maybe see if he could try to create a Gaster blaster or two like Sans could, and show them _precisely_ how capable he was of defending himself. But to do so would be to blow the cover that he and Caleb had carefully devised, and so he bit his tongue and involuntarily lowered his shoulders and head.

"Your transport will arrive at precisely noon." the agent finished. "Please be prepared to leave by then."

* * *

Asriel carefully avoided looking at Frisk as he shoved a book into his backpack. She was doing the same as she zipped hers up and carried it to the door. "Come on," she said briefly. "It's 11:50."

Asriel was about to reply with something- he didn't know what he would have said, but it probably wouldn't have been very nice- when Caleb suddenly said, _Got a request for you, Asriel._

 _What?_ Asriel snapped.

 _I know that you kept my old hoodie. I want you to bring it with... and my shark-tooth necklace as well._

Asriel stood and stiffly moved over to his desk. Frisk seemed to realize that waiting for him was a lost cause, and turned to the door.

As the monster opened the bottom desk drawer, he heard the door slam behind him as Frisk left their room.

Caleb's tattered red hoodie lay there at the bottom of the drawer, neatly folded. Asriel had made no effort to clean it or even remove the blood, and the bullet hole drilled through the middle looked just as ugly and blood-spattered as it had that dreadful night. Caleb's necklace was sitting there next to it, and Asriel stuffed it in his pocket.

 _Say, would you mind putting on my old hoodie?_ Caleb asked.

Asriel raised an eyebrow. _Are you trying to imply something here?_

Caleb didn't get it, and then he did. _What? NO! I just... Look, cut a dead guy some slack and do it, alright?_

 _Fine._ Hesitantly Asriel put his arms into the sleeves, shrugging the hoodie around his body. Despite the fact that Caleb had been shorter than Asriel, the hoodie fit the goat monster almost perfectly.

Asriel reached for the zipper and slowly pulled it up the length of the hoodie, stopping just below his neck. Sighing, he thrust his hands into the pockets. _There. Happy?_

 _Yes, actually._ Was it just Asriel's imagination, or was Caleb's soul glowing a little brighter? _Thanks, Asriel._

Reaching for his backpack, Asriel slung it onto his back and headed for the door. Turning around, he scanned the room.

This was the bedroom he and Frisk had shared for almost a year. This was the place where they had celebrated being finally let out of the prison camp. This was where Caleb had hatched his disastrous plan to assassinate Pence. This was his home.

And now he was leaving it.

Taking one final look around, Asriel closed the door behind him before walking down the stairs silently.

It would be the last time he ever saw his house again.


	35. Broken Bones

**A/N: For those of you who are interested, on the Anomaly Cycle Tumblr I've put out an alternate ending for a timeline where Sans didn't die (** **anomalycycle. tumblr post/160671006993/but-what-if-sans-didnt-die). In addition to this, in response to an ask I got on the Tumblr, I began a two-shot called "Bravely Divert" about a timeline where Chara didn't die to save Asriel, but in fact just the opposite happened, which you can find here:** **www. fanfiction s/12521488/1/Anomaly-Cycle-Bravely-Divert**

The bus rocked slowly from side to side as it traveled onward, rust flaking gently from the sides. The faded seats inside were packed with monsters, one human in their midst.

Frisk stared stubbornly out the window, keeping her eyes away from Asriel. He was sitting on the edge of the seat they were sharing, also making a very deliberate effort to not look at her. He was wearing Caleb's old hoodie, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets. Toriel was sitting across the aisle from them, bags taking up most of the rest of her seat.

The sun was beginning to set over the long road they had traveled. From the signs the bus had passed so far, the best Frisk could judge was that they were somewhere in Nevada, near the Idaho border.

Frisk couldn't understand why Asriel hadn't just let her die. Couldn't he understand that it would have been for the best? He could've taken her soul and reset, made everything better. But no, he had to go and mess it all up, and now there was no going back. She'd had to leave her knife at home, and it was too much to hope for that Asriel had brought Caleb's gun as well.

 _Whatever happens from here on,_ Frisk thought, fixing her eyes on the landscape outside the window that slowly rolled by, _it's his fault. He knows what's going on here, he knows how I... he... point being, he should have known better than to try to stop me._

But there wasn't anything to say, and there wasn't anything to do either.

Frisk pressed her cheek against the window and stared aimlessly backwards at the road. Cars meandered across the road behind them, seemingly aimlessly drifting behind the hulk of the bus. She stayed like this for a while, leaning against the glass and watching the cars go.

It was several minutes before she realized they were being followed.

The car was a red convertible. It had stayed hard on the bus's tail for the past half hour, although always ensuring to keep at least one car in between itself and the bus so as to appear as if it wasn't following it, but from Frisk's perspective it was pretty clear that it was following them. She couldn't make out the facial features of the person driving it, as the shadow of the hood they were wearing covered their face, and they were either hunched over or pretty short.

As if the driver had read her mind, they slowly let their car drift backwards into traffic, but they didn't move out of sight of the bus.

 _Weird. But I'm not gonna question it- probably just a government agent following us to make sure nobody bails._ Although there were already several black government cars surrounding the bus convoy, it wouldn't be unrealistic to assume that they'd have less obvious agents following as well.

The bus jolted to the right suddenly, and Frisk smacked her forehead on the window. Swearing very quietly, she pushed herself upright to see the bus turning into the gas station. The government agents sitting at the front and back stood up, scanning the interior of the bus, as the driver got up and shoved his rotund form through the door.

Frisk's head snapped up. _This could be my only chance. I need to move now._

Shuffling slowly sideways, she maneuvered past Asriel, still stubbornly refusing to make eye contact, and started to make her way up the aisle.

"Frisk? What are you doing?" asked Toriel.

"I just have to pee, is all." Frisk replied. "I know gas station bathrooms are horrible, but it's not like I have any other choice."

Toriel nodded. "Try to be quick. I do not know how long it will take to refuel, but it certainly cannot be that long."

Frisk continued up the aisle, taking casual side glances as she continued forward. It had been fairly obvious from the beginning that she was the only human on the bus, but the depressing confirmation only cemented her morose mood.

Swiftly, one of the government agents moved to block her path. "Stop right there," he said. "Where do you think you're trying to go?"

"Bathroom." Frisk replied shortly. She wasn't in the mood to elaborate.

The man nodded, stepping out of her way. "Be quick about it."

Frisk left the bus quickly and walked into the station. She didn't actually need to pee; she was here for another reason, and that was to find some kind of weapon. It didn't matter what it was. As long as she could kill herself with it, and it was easily concealed, that was all she needed.

Making sure to keep herself out of sight from the windows, she quickly scanned through the various useless things...

 _There._ Quickly Frisk palmed a pen from the shelf, keeping her expression neutral, and walked up to the front. It would probably be a painful death, but if Chara had endured death by buttercup poisoning and then been erased and shattered across the void then she could stab herself in the neck with a pen a few times.

Silently Frisk slid the pen across the counter, along with a dollar bill. "Can I have the restroom key?" she asked. _Need to keep up appearances._

"Certainly." The cashier raised an eyebrow, but didn't question her, and slid her change and a tarnished key across the counter. Frisk stuffed the pen and coins into her pockets and walked calmly towards the bathroom.

* * *

Although Asriel had gotten some odd looks for wearing a bloodstained, tattered hoodie, nobody had told him to take it off or asked why there was blood on his hoodie. They probably thought it was fake blood and he was just wearing it to make a political statement or something like that, and considering what went on in Caleb's mind sometimes, or at least what Asriel could catch before Caleb realized that he was listening in and slammed up his mental barriers, that guess might be accurate.

Asriel slammed the back of his head into the seat, making sure not to do it too loudly. _What the hell is taking Frisk so long?_

 _I have no idea,_ Caleb said, _but she shouldn't be long. 'Sides, they won't just leave without her._

Idly Asriel toggled the zipper on Caleb's hoodie up and down. _You really sure about that?_

 _No._ Caleb replied. _No, I'm not._

The bus driver finished messing with the pump and turned back towards the bus, the rolls of fat around his sides shaking slightly.

 _Frisk better hurry up,_ Asriel thought, a little annoyed in spite of himself. _Honestly, it's like she..._

And then Asriel froze, his green eyes widening in panic. _No, no, she wouldn't! She wouldn't!_

 _Like she what?_ prompted Caleb, a note of unease in his voice.

 _Like she wants to get left behind._ Asriel forced out.

 _Shit._

The bus driver flopped down into the driver's seat and started the engine. If the government agents were concerned about Frisk being left behind, they didn't show it.

Asriel squinted out the window at the flickering light in the gas station. _Come on, Frisk, hurry up!_

* * *

After about a minute, Frisk judged that she had spent enough time in the bathroom to put up a semblance of actually doing something without giving the bus the time to leave without her. She strolled calmly past the cashier, tossing the key back to her as she headed towards the front door.

And then she stopped dead in her tracks in disbelief.

 _The convoy was leaving._

Already the first bus was pulling out of the parking lot, and Frisk could just barely make out Asriel's anguished face against the window before it rolled onto the highway.

And then she started running, desperation fueling her steps and granting her strength, but the convoy was leaving and it was _too late, too late..._

And then they were gone, and she was left standing in the parking lot, panting futilely.

She was a fourteen-year-old girl, standing at a gas station somewhere in Nevada, without a clue of where she was or how to get to wherever her family was going, completely lost and at the mercy of the cruel, racist world around her.

 _This is the end._ Slumping sideways, she dropped to the ground on her rear and hugged her knees. _This is how it will all end, in a world where I've driven away everyone I care about and been left behind._

Tears ran from her eyes and fell wetly against the asphalt. _Asriel... I'm so sorry. I should've made amends and moved on instead of holding some idiotic grudge because he wouldn't let me die._

Finally, she noticed that red convertible that had been following the convoy, idling in the parking lot only a few meters away from her. _What is it doing here? Shouldn't it be off to following the convoy again?_

Her eyes widened as the side door opened, and reflexively she tensed herself, preparing to fight if necessary. _This is NOT the time for my old idealism._

A light, misty rain was falling as a bony, stick-thin figure stood and closed the car door behind them. Facing Frisk, they reached up for the hood covering their face and shoved it slowly off their head, revealing a very familiar skeletal face.

 _But he's supposed to be dead..._

Awkwardly the skeleton tugged at the edges of the tattered blue hoodie he was wearing. "ER... HELLO, FRISK! SORRY FOR MAKING EVERYONE THINK I WAS DEAD, BUT... IT WAS FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, I PROMISE."

A huge smile split Frisk's face. "Papyrus!"

"YES. I..." Whatever he had been about to say, it was cut short as Frisk hugged him tightly. "We thought you were dead!" she managed. "Why did you..." She couldn't get the words out.

"WHY DID I FAKE MY DEATH, YOU MEAN?" Papyrus asked, and reluctantly Frisk nodded. "WELL, THE EXPLANATION THERE CAN WAIT UNTIL AFTER SOMETHING ELSE. FRISK, EVERYONE IS IN GREAT DANGER. PRESIDENT O'BRIEN IS... NOT WHAT HE CLAIMS TO BE."

"What do you mean?" But Frisk had a growing fear that she already knew what he meant.

"HE'S SENDING THEM TO THEIR DEATHS."


	36. Breaking Point

**A/N: Guys, I'm genuinely sorry that this chapter took so long to come out. It was pretty hard emotionally to write, and I've also been away from my computer more than I should have been over the past month. In fact, I wrote most of this chapter in Samsung Notes on my phone while I was in New York, so if the formatting's messed up, that's why.**

 **I feel kind of like a prick for advertising another story here, but since as of right now it's only had 11 views... Yeah. Anyway, I've got another fic up called "Cynicism and Innocence," and it's a deconstruction of all those self-insert stories you see where the OC drags the Undertale characters into our world. If you're interested, then check it out, I guess.**

 **Also, for the one guest who asked if Jake Featherston's inclusion was a reference to the Timeline-191/Southern Victory series, yes, it was, and there are in fact several references to it throughout _In At the Death_ (including the title).**

* * *

 **Viewer discretion advised.**

* * *

Somebody had told Frisk once that everyone had their breaking point. She couldn't remember who, and at this point she didn't care. A point at which they couldn't function anymore.

A point at which they were simply unable to keep going.

A point at which they couldn't...

They couldn't even keep themself alive.

Had she had the strength, she would have laughed, unable to stop, rivulets of frantic, insatiable, unstoppable laughter coursing from her lips and filling the night with their cold, uncaring anachronism. But what did it matter? What difference would a few breaths spent on a meaningless action make?

None. An obvious answer from the start.

The red convertible trundled along on its doomed path down the road, bouncing slightly occasionally. Frisk's arm moved up and down, slowly and inconspicuously, in a continuous, monotonous, motion, as she stared out the window at the fading sky. For the first time, she understood how Caleb felt on the eve of his death.

 _And who is to say this is not the eve of mine?_

Bitter self-resentment coursed through Frisk. _Why? Why did I leave Asriel under the impression that I still hated him? There was never a point. It was just my petty pride... my petty FUCKING pride... I HATE MYSELF._

Frisk's arm continued to move up and down, each stroke sending the stolen pen into her arm to leave another puncture hole. The waves of pain provided a small amount of relief, yet they were nowhere near to helping to repent for what she'd done.

Blood trickled unsteadily down her arm, glad to be free of her deplorable body, as it should be.  
And yet... it wasn't enough. She cast about the inside of the car for something else to use, but Papyrus had kept the interior spotless. _Dammit_.

She let herself rock slowly from side to side. There was pain coming from somewhere, which was strange... hadn't she let the pen fall from her limp fingers to the ground by now?

Frisk didn't realize that she was slamming her head into the window next to her until Papyrus started shouting from the driver's seat, and then he was spinning the car onto the side of the road.

"FRISK! FRISK! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? STOP!"

 _Gee, I don't know. What does it look like I'm doing?_ Frisk turned her head. Trickles of sticky red blood spattered the window, and as she pulled her head away from the window her hair clung to the stained, cracked window.

Papyrus shoved the door open and pulled Frisk from her seat. She let him, hanging limply from his hands. Tired resignation swept over her. _What does it matter? What does any of it matter?_

 **There is no meaning, Frisk.**

Papyrus gently set Frisk to the ground next to the car, kneeling next to her with a melancholy expression.

 **That is the sole truth. It's just shapes all around us**.

"FRISK... WE NEED TO TALK."

 **Shapes that do nothing useful**.

"About what?" Frisk replied, swiping blood from her arm with her free hand. "There's nothing left to say but speak of how few remain..."

 **Shapes...**

"THERE IS FAR, FAR MORE THAN THAT." Papyrus placed an arm gently around her shoulders. She didn't resist. "YOU'RE... BROKEN INSIDE, AREN'T YOU? I UNDERSTAND. I WAS JUST LIKE THAT AFTER SANS DIED."

 **Shapes that kill, murder, rip life from your grasp, give you a chance to take back everything you once had and more...**

"Then you'll know that you can't stop me." With a heavy sigh, Frisk leaned back against the car door. "Is there even a point to keep me alive right now? I'm more of a hindrance than anything. Just let me end my worthless life, take my soul, and go save the day yourself. You'll be the hero monsters deserve. I certainly can't take that title."

 **And just as you come into contact with it, it's torn from your limp fingers..**.

"THAT IS NOT TRUE." Papyrus retaliated firmly. "YOU ARE ALREADY OUR HERO. YOU LIBERATED US FROM MILLENNIA OF IMPRISONMENT..."

"And subjected you to the hell of the surface!" Frisk stubbornly refused to let herself cry **.** _I will show no weakness._

"YOU GAVE US A CHANCE! YOU GAVE US HOPE! YOU LET US FINALLY SEE THE SUN AND STARS! AS FLEETING AS IT MAY HAVE BEEN," acknowledged the tall skeleton, "IT WAS STILL THERE. FOR THOSE FEW MONTHS... YOU GAVE US A HAPPINESS THAT COULD NEVER BE REPLICATED ANY OTHER WAY."

 **And you fall to the ground crying, calling out for someone to save you...**

"And?" Frisk felt something drip from the bottom of her chin, and felt vaguely annoyed. _Didn't I promise myself I wouldn't cry?_

"AND WHAT? NONE OF THIS IS YOUR FAULT, FRISK, AND DON'T DELUDE YOURSELF INTO THINKING IT IS. WE HAVE A CHANCE TO SAVE THOSE THAT STILL REMAIN, AND YOU WILL THROW THAT AWAY ON MISGUIDED GUILT?"

Papyrus looked like he was about to say something else, but whatever it would have been was ripped away by a sudden shout: "Get away from the girl!"

 _No..._ Somehow, in the time they had been talking, a police car had come up alongside them with neither of them noticing.

Papyrus's head jerked up. "THERE IS NO NEED TO BE HOSTILE, OFFICER." he said pleasantly. "I WOULD NEVER HARM A FRIEND."

Tilting his head, the officer wondered aloud, "What are you doing out here, anyway? Didn't they send all you freaks to Idaho?"

 **BUT NOBODY CAME.**

Papyrus's eyesockets narrowed. "YOU WILL NOT HURT FRISK." At a flick from his wrist, a bone surfaced from the ground and nestled gently in his hand. Speaking calmly and keeping his eyes fixed on the policeman, Papyrus said in a firm voice, "IT APPEARS YOU WILL NEED TO SAVE THEM ON YOUR OWN, FRISK. THE DEATH CAMP'S OVER THE NEXT RIDGE. ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS RUN." Turning his head and smiling warmly, he added, "I BELIEVE IN YOU!"

Frisk ran, and she didn't need the sound of gunfire to tell her of Papyrus's fate.

 **Nobody came for me, either.**

Dust drifted in the wind, and a skull fell to the ground.

A quiet voice asked, almost wonderingly, "SANS, IS THAT-"

And then another gunshot cut off whatever they were going to say.

But if someone had listened closely enough, they might have heard a quiet, barely audible, voice say, _"shhh... everything's going to be okay, papyrus. just... let go."_

* * *

Asriel let his gaze drift, disinterested, to his mother. Toriel's eyes were hollow and focused on nothing in particular.

 _She's been like this since the convoy left Frisk behind._ Caleb supplied.

 **I'm surprised I feel so detached myself.**

 _I want it to end._

Asriel's head smacked against the window as the bus hit a bump, but he made no effort to change position.

And then Caleb suddenly shouted, _Son of a bitch!_

 _What?_ Asriel asked. He didn't really care what Caleb was shouting about, but he might as well ask.

 _This was all part of Frisk's plan!_ Caleb yelled incredulously. _She wanted to make you hate her, so it would hurt less when she killed herself! When she went into the shop, she was probably going to shoplift something to kill herself with!_

 _What?_ But even as Asriel tried to deny Caleb's reasoning, he knew it was true.

 **I want it to end...**

The bus abruptly halted, and Asriel gazed apathetically out the window at the gray concrete construct before them. _Oh, look. We've arrived._

 _Something about this doesn't seem right..._ Caleb muttered.

Distantly, Asriel could hear someone shouting at the monsters to get off the bus. Something about a processing station.

 **I... want it to end...**

He obeyed blindly, following Toriel as she stiffly filed down the corridor in the center of the bus, to the door, through the dreary grass, to another door. It creaked open, revealing a wide, gray clearing, surrounded by a high wall topped with barbed wire. The far wall was covered by an extended awning.

 **I... want... it... to... end...**

 _This doesn't feel right._ Caleb was clearly on edge, scanning the room.

A sharp metallic click filled the clearing as the door closed behind the monsters, trapping them.

 **I WANT IT TO END**!

Suddenly, they materialized from under the awning.

 _Soldiers._

Each carrying a fully loaded machine gun.

Caleb was shouting something, but Asriel ignored him. _This is what I deserve._

And even as the guns rang out, spewing their deadly arsenal, and even as monsters fell around Asriel, he was untouched.

Even as Toriel crumpled beside him, faintly smiling as she crumbled to dust, he was unharmed.

 _What?_

Caleb's soul pulsated, glowing yellow under the surface of the red hoodie. An ethereal, green shield had materialized around Asriel, deflecting away the bullets that had been aimed at him.

 _What the hell did you just do?_ Asriel snapped.

 _I saved your damn life instead of letting you die from this idiotic guilt is what happened!_ Caleb snapped back.

 _No!_ Asriel clenched down on Caleb's soul with all his strength, forcing it down, until with a howl of anguish Caleb let the shield drop.

"I've got this." said one of the soldiers, breaking ranks to step forwards. "I've still got several bullets left." Stopping a few feet from Asriel, he leveled his rifle at the fallen prince from point-blank range. Asriel regarded it apathetically.

 **What have I been doing?**

 **I've been taking away what was a happy ending and made it into hell.**

 **Asgore, Sans, Napstablook, Mettaton, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, Toriel...**

 **This was never about them.**

 **This was never about you.**

 **This was always about me.**

 **I've became the very monster I profess to despise.**

 **Not real? Don't make me laugh. I put so much thought and care into this world that it might as well have been real.**

 **And now I am become death, destroyer of worlds.**

 **I'm sorry, Asriel. But this was inevitable.**

"Nothing personal," said the soldier, and squeezed the trigger.


	37. Ruptured

The monsters were herded in front of the soldiers, who stood, hidden, ready to kill them on the orders of their superiors.

And yet, one of the soldiers was nervous.

His name was James Thompson. Initially, he was happy to join the military. Protecting the people of America was all he wanted to do.

James eagerly consumed what he was told, that monsters were genocidal freaks who were holding back from killing humans long enough to insert themselves into society so they could catch their unsuspecting neighbors off guard, rip them to shreds and take their souls. But looking at the monsters, huddling together pitifully and fearfully, he couldn't help but wonder how they were supposed to annihilate humanity.

As he stepped forward with his comrades, guilt gnawed at him. _Are we sure that this is the right thing to do? They're defenseless, for God's sake._

James met the angry glare of one of the monsters, a teenaged goat-like boy wearing a tattered red hoodie with what looked like a bullet hole in it. The monster's eyes raked him mercilessly, judging him in a heartbeat to be beyond forgiveness, and a deep shame and sorrow struck him.

And as he lifted his gun in sync with the others, a thought came to him.

 _Didn't Hitler use arguments like the ones we were given?_

With a short gasp, he lowered his rifle. He was not the only one.

And then his muscles twitched, and the gun came up again.

 _What? NO!_

His gun blazed, cutting down monsters, bullets vaporizing their delicate bodies in heartbeats.  
And as it did, as he desperately tried to pull a finger that was no longer his away from the trigger, a voice spoke in his head.

And it said:

 _Insubordination will not be tolerated. You will kill them with your brethren._

James watched in horror as his body moved on its own, cutting down the defenseless monsters with bullet after bullet.

 _Who are you? Why are you doing this?_ demanded James, trying not to break down.

Silence, and then: _You may call me the Anomaly. I'm very close to winning the game, and I won't tolerate some useless NPCs who decided to have a change of heart._

One of the monsters had not fallen with the others, the goat in the red hoodie. There was an ethereal green shield surrounding him with smoldering, half-melted bullets lying in front of it. His left eye was blazing yellow; his expression twisted into something both frightening and pitiable.

Suddenly, the shield flickered and dropped away, yet for some reason he looked almost... relieved?

James felt himself stepping forward, legs moving and arms bringing his gun up. "I've got this." he heard himself say in a terrifyingly detached voice. "I've still got several bullets left."

Something blue flickered in the corner of James's vision, rapidly growing larger, but his head refused to turn, focused as it was on the sole surviving monster.

 _I don't understand._ pleaded James. _WHY? Why are you doing this?_

 _Why the hell not?_ came the amused reply as his gun fired.

* * *

The first thought Asriel had was _How am I not dead?_ He had heard the gun fire, and there was no way the soldier could have missed.

With a slight growl, he opened his eyes. _Dammit, Caleb, if you put up the shield again, I'm gonna-_

And then he saw the reason that he was still alive, and he felt his soul crash through his body.

Frisk stood in front of Asriel, arms spread, facing the soldiers, a slight grin on her face. Blood trickled from the hole in her chest, drilled through by a bullet that had been meant for the last surviving monster in the United States of America.

Asriel felt his eyes widen in disbelief. _How? Where...?_ Tears refused to come.

Teetering on her feet, Frisk fell backwards and started to crash to the ground, but Asriel caught her just in time. He tried to say her name, but his throat refused to cooperate.

Frisk was still smiling, even facing death, though it was clearly forced. "Asriel... I..." she managed. "I'm sorry... I shouldn't have... been angry... at you... I just... I... I..."

And then her voice stilled, eyes staring blankly to the sky above.

The soldiers stared in shock at the dead human and the gently quivering monster kneeling beside her, but the one who had stepped up to shoot Asriel kept his gun trained on him. "Get the HELL away from her!" he roared, expression bellicose, the fear in his eyes betraying his assumption of what would come next. "You're not getting her soul!"

 _That's what you fear, is it?_ Asriel lifted his head to stare defiantly into the soldier's eyes. _You tried to kill us, fearing what might be, and you succeeded._

 _I wonder how many senseless wars and deaths could have been eliminated if this mindless, mass fear didn't exist._

 _No sense in wondering what could have been, I guess._ Gently Asriel reached out to close Frisk's eyes. _There's only what is here and now._

 _And there's nothing left for me... for us... in this world of death._

Asriel felt his sadness begin to boil away, replaced by burning rage. A cold fire seemed to spread from his amalgam of a soul to the rest of his body, freezing and burning his at the same time.

He could feel his hand moving by itself as it reached out for Frisk's soul, glowing a dim red as it drifted upwards.

 _AND THERE'S ONLY ONE THING LEFT FOR ME TO DO._

Ignoring the screaming and the guns raising, too late, to fire, Asriel's fingers closed around Frisk's soul.

There was a dim, underwhelmed moment of _That's all?_ before his vision blurred, everything shifting violently around him.

There were panicked screams, but he ignored them in favor of concentrating, feeling the power flow through him, raw magic coursing through his body.

Asriel opened his eyes, and was somewhat surprised to find that he now had three of them, or at least that was what he could infer from his additional visual range. Trying to move his arms, he came to the realization that he now had six of them, huge, clawed behemoths replacing the arms of his weak, young teenage self.

The rest of him had changed as well, that much he could infer from the immense wings folding from behind him, but he wasn't in the mood to analyze his new body.

No.

He was in the mood for retribution.

His lips stretched away from his now-jagged teeth in an insane-looking grin as he summoned fireballs into each hand, catapulting them forward at the soldiers. They didn't even have time to scream before they were incinerated in a flash, skin melting from their skeletons, organs boiling and bursting, blood evaporating in a heartbeat.

There was distant cackling somewhere.

Their souls lifted towards the sky, but Asriel refused to let them go. He clamped down on each soul with magical pseudopods, cracking and fracturing each one till they ruptured, releasing their raw power, and he hungrily took it in.

 _So... much... POWER._

Asriel couldn't hold on to all that power. He had to release it, but how?

And then he knew.

Bringing his hands together at his chest, Asriel let himself glide higher, higher, until he was hovering above that wretched place.

Looking around, he surveyed the surroundings. A tranquil-seeming forest. Several scattered, small towns. A congested highway.

Farther away, on the horizon, there were a few cities, the largest one probably Boise, filled with humans going about their daily lives, unaware of the holocaust their government had perpetrated right under their noses.

Gathering power into his palms, Asriel slammed it downwards, into the ground.

There was a boom spreading outwards, the shockwave rippling trees, shaking houses, breaking windows, bursting underground pipes, before the blast even hit the ground.

And then it did, and the effects of the shockwave were instantly negated by what came next.

The beam of white energy smashed into the ground, obliterating the death camp and everything around it for miles in a heartbeat and cratering the area immediately beneath Asriel. The new shockwave created by that spread for at least fifty miles in every direction, or so Asriel could infer by the rippling wave that seemed to pass through the ground and everything on it. He could see a plane fall out of the sky at the exterior of the blast zone, managing to pull up just before hitting the ground.

 _I've barely ventilated any of this power._ Asriel mused in a detached tone. _Let's rectify that, shall we?_

He didn't even bother to attempt to block the power this time, and it poured out of him in a raw rush, smashing into the ground and rushing outwards at a speed faster than even Asriel's augmented eyes could comprehend.

* * *

 **Asriel can't see what's happening here, nor how far the devastation will spread.**

 **Understandable. Despite having absorbed two human souls and taken the power of several more ruptured souls, even his eyes cannot see that far.**

 **But as your omniscient, all-knowing Writer, I can.**

 **So let me tell you exactly what your innocent, fan-favorite goat child has done to this world, shall we?**

 **In less than a second, easily half of Idaho, parts of Oregon, northern Nevada, and Utah collapse under the massive output of magic into an enormous gray crater, made unique by the interesting black patterns spread across it.**

 **Boise, Twin Falls, Sawtooth National Forest, Idaho Falls, even as far away as Salt Lake City and parts of Yellowstone, all lost.**

 **But that's just the crater. We are not even half over.**

 **In your mind's eye, why don't you zoom out from the northwestern United States? Take a more wide look at North America.**

 **A bright speck forms in southern Idaho, blasting away a massive crater and continuing past that, shredding nearly all of the clouds in the western half of the continent to disjointed pieces.**

 **The white blast spreads far, FAR, beyond the crater, annihilating Washington State, Oregon, Montana, California, and all but the farthest east parts of states like the Dakotas, Texas, and Oklahoma.** **Farther north, southern parts of Canadian provinces like British Columbia and Alberta have been blasted away as well, and some regions along the Mexican border have been vaporized as well.**

 **Cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, Las Vegas, Portland, Helena, Denver, Provo, Santa Fe, Phoenix, and everything in between are vaporized beneath the wave, industrial-grade steel liquefying. Skyscrapers seem to melt and collapse, as do their occupants. Brick is dust, mountains are gravel, people are torn apart into miniscule pieces which are then vaporized.**

 **Less than ten seconds have passed, and nearly half of the United States, in addition to a good portion of southwest Canada, have been destroyed beneath the glaring white light, purifying all it reaches.**

 **Don't think that's the end, though. And for those of you chortling because your home is just outside the blast radius, don't count yourself safe just yet.**

 **The shockwave lashes out far past the circle of white fire, blasting away everything in its path. The northern two-thirds or so of Mexico, almost all of Canada west of Ontario, and all of the rest of the United States save the eastern seaboard are toppled in a wave of hot wind moving at several hundred miles per hour. The rest of the continent feels a strong wind, and although many will experience conditions similar to severe sunburn and several windows will be shattered, they will survive.**

 **As for the rest of the world...**

 **The blast of hot wind whipped up tsunamis in the Pacific. Miles high at their source, they travel across the Pacific, losing momentum and height as they go, but by the time the waves reach Taiwan, coastal China, and Japan, they're still at least half a mile high, drowning everything in their path.**

 **It has now been a minute since Asriel's fury was unleashed upon the world. The tsunamis are rolling across the Pacific, and although countries like Japan and China will have some advance warning, islands like Hawaii will be caught completely off guard and become submerged beneath the waves, irretrievable and unfixable.**

 **Devastation roils across the world. Shock and panic finds its way around the world.**

 **It is most advanced in no place other than Camp David, where President Alvar O'Brien will receive the news with much fearful shouting and the beginnings of a nervous breakdown before retreating to his quarters. When he does not emerge for several hours, his guard will open the door and find him slumped over on his desk holding a Glock G43 single stack 9mm pistol. There is a surprisingly small amount of blood. He is the first president to die by his own hand.**

 **The president _pro tempore_ of the Senate, Orrin Hatch, will be notified of the second presidential death in this year and sworn in aboard an armored car in the middle of a large convoy while being shuttled from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where the surviving members of the government were sent following the nuking in Washington DC, on his way to Camp David. Considering the fact that his electorate has now been annihilated and his home state split between a crater's edge and blasted gray wastelands, he likely would have stepped down had O'Brien not killed himself, as do many of his colleagues.**

 **If only you had known that all it would take to get a non-Patriot president into office was to destroy over half of the North American continent in magical white hellfire. Nevertheless, I believe that we can unanimously agree that this should be the end.**

 **Now Asriel has become death, destroyer of worlds. And as the one who caused him to do this, by default, so am I.**

 **This kind of damage can't be undone, even by a reset. Even if Asriel did manage to force a True Reset- which he can't- the trauma to the land and people would not be easily undone. They would be haunted by nightmares of their deaths in the prior timeline for years after the fact, and the soil will be as if it were salted for decades.**

 **You may not be satisfied by this. Understandable. But even if this world is dying, it still has a story to be told, and as is my duty... as it has always been... I intend to tell it.**

* * *

Asriel lowered himself to the ground, glaring across the charred gray wastelands. _Nothing is left._ He felt a fierce satisfaction. _The crimes of humanity against my people and my family have finally been avenged._

And then a tiny voice made him immediately reconsider everything.

It was barely even a tendril of thought, slowly moving towards his mind. But it came from Frisk's soul, and so he immediately listened to it.

And it said, in a fearful voice, _Asriel, wh_ _at have you done?_

Asriel didn't comprehend for a moment, and then as the realization of what he had done in his moment of rage finally sunk in his eyes widened in horror. _What... What HAVE I done?_

 _I've ended this world, and everyone on it, including myself._

In a similarly fearful voice to Frisk, Caleb asked, _What remains now?_

Asriel let his eyes trawl across the barren terrain, and finally, in a tired, regretful voice that carried all the weight of the world on it, replied, "Hence nothing remains but our regrets."

* * *

A notification.

The Seraph tore eyes widened in disbelief from the open game window and its scene of utter devastation and forced himself to read the message.

It was from the Anomaly, and it was only three words.

 _I have won._

Gritting his teeth, the Seraph typed back **.You have not won.**

 _Oh? I think I have, brother dearest._

 **.Asriel still lives, as do Caleb and Frisk within him.**

 **.I am not giving up simply because you tell me to.**

 **.I will find a way to reset, and then I will be the victor.**

 _Do remember the rules of the game. We cannot simply reset whenever we feel like it, only when the circumstances permit it and if the puppets have appropriate amounts of power. Asriel cannot reset. Frisk's soul has lost nearly all of its determination from all the death she experienced, and as for Caleb? While Justice souls do contain some determination, it's not nearly enough to reset the world. Asriel isn't even in the right place to reset!_

That was all true, unfortunately. But the Seraph was not about to give up.

 **.You want to continue the game as well, do you not?**

 **.There's a lot of potential for this world that has not yet been exercised.**

 **.And I can help Asriel** **through an unorthodox source that you've never even thought of...**

The Seraph smiled. _He_ would exist in this world as his true self in addition to his little, independent avatar, after all. He'd made quite sure of that as a failsafe since the beginning.

 _Surely you aren't referring to the creator?_

 **.Yes, I am.**

 **.I speak of the one who invented the world we use as a plaything, of course, or more accurately his far less empowered counterpart within this world.**

 **.He will aid Asriel in recovering what can be salvaged.**

 **.And you shall not take him.**

 _You want to try to bend the rules? FINE! I CAN BEND THE RULES TOO!_

"Of course you can," sighed the Seraph, shoving the Undertale window to the side. "You wouldn't be my little brother if you didn't."

Ignoring the further incensed messages from the Anomaly, he opened the game files and checked the NPC folder for New England. Good, he was still alive. (Granted, almost everyone in New England was alive, but still.) That was something.

He opened the game file labeled "The One" and stared at the screen for a moment, uncertain. _What exactly should I alter? If I do too much he could potentially be torn apart from the inside by the edit, but if I do too little he won't survive..._

The Anomaly was still ranting. _YOU CAN'T WIN! YOU WON'T WIN! YOU'VE ALREADY LOST, YOU FOOL!_

 **.Since when have you been like this?**

 **.You sound like some idiotic cartoon villain.**

 **. And we both know with what frequency their plans succeed.**

That shut the Anomaly up, at least for now, and the Seraph turned back to altering the file.

 _Guess that's enough._ Making one last change- boosting maximum HP to 1000- he closed the game file for Toby Fox and set Undertale to full screen. This wouldn't be easy, but that didn't mean he was just going to quit, either.

* * *

 **A/N: _In At the Death_ has reached its forlorn conclusion, and as Asriel and many before him said, "Hence nothing remains but our regrets."**

 **While I'm not going to say that I hoped you liked this- that'd be expecting too much- I do hope you got something out of this.**

 **You probably feel dissatisfied by this ending. Understandable. To be honest, I'm not entirely happy with it either. But that was intentional. You shouldn't feel happy after coming out of a bleak tale of oppression and genocide from a fandom with comparatively happy takes on the surface world. You should want a better ending, one that ties up loose endings and at the very least doesn't almost completely kill off the main cast, and with _The Hand That Mocked Them_ (formerly known as After the Downfall and the sequel to this) I shall do my best to provide that.**

 **And speaking of which...**

 **I purposely posted the first chapter of _The Hand That Mocked Them_ before posting this chapter, so you can go right to it without needing to wait however many days before it comes out and potentially miss it, and it can be found here: f** **anfiction (dot net) /s/12616050/1/Anomaly-Book-Three-The-Hand-That-Mocked-Them**

 **Or, alternatively, you can just scroll up, go to my profile, click "hide bio" and it should be there right next to this.**

 **See you there!**


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